Me and Myself
by The Funny Idiot
Summary: Time Travel fic, slight AU. Yup, another one of these. Harry goes back in time and ends up raising himself, while trying to prevent Voldemort's rise to power.
1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:** Hey everyone! I know there are alot of stories like this floating around, but that's part of the reason why I wanted to do one myself. I know that I've seen this particular concept, that of Harry going back in time and raising himself, done before, so that idea isn't mine (although I can't remember whose it _is_, sorry). Also, to clear up the 'slightly Au' bit - expect things to be canon up until the Battle of Hogwarts in Deathly Hallows. But anyway, please enjoy, and feel free to review honestly.

**Disclaimer:** Harry Potter isn't mine. :P

On the doorstep of a quiet house, on a quiet street, in the early hours before morning, a baby lay sleeping.

Wrapped in a warm blanket, the babe was also wrapped in a special kind of magic. An old wizard's spell. It made eyes that were not meant to see him fall away, rolling off of his image, and made ears that may have heard the occasional cry or sound from him deaf to them instead. The spell was meant to protect the infant, only to be broken when his horrible aunt opened her front door to see him lying there.

With a wave of his hand, a dark figure at the end of the house's walk cast it away, as though it were a mere piece of paper and not a complex bit of spellwork.

Gentle hands lifted the basket, and the baby stirred slightly, opening brilliant green eyes for a brief moment before collapsing back into exhaustion.

"You've had one hell of a night, huh?" the dark figure whispered quietly. And then, without a single eye upon him, he turned and strode down the street.

The next morning, Albus Dumbledore would send an old friend of his, Arabella Figg, to Little Whinging with a request that she keep an eye on young Harry Potter as he settled in with his aunt and uncle.

A few hours later, he would receive a frantic fire-call from her. Harry Potter was gone. And for the next ten years, he would stay that way.

Mrs. Wilkens smiled at the dark-haired little boy who darted down the isle of the grocery store after his uncle, his trainers squeaking on the smooth floor and his hands grasping a colourful box of children's cereal.

"Is that Harry and his Uncle Jack over there?" she asked of her own son, though she already knew the answer. Douglas' head whipped over to where she had indicated, and he gave a call of delight.

"Harry! Hey, Harry!"

The boy paused, looking confused for a moment before spotting his school friend and neighbour, and giving an enthusiastic wave. Mrs. Wilkens chuckled at his behavior as both he and, now, his uncle, began to head over.

"Lucy," Jack said by way of greeting. Jack Weatherby and his nephew had moved to the neighbourhood a few years ago, and it never ceased to amaze Mrs. Wilkens how alike the two looked. If she didn't know any better, she would easily believe that Jack was Harry's father, or even a much-older brother.

"Are you still coming to my birthday party, Harry?" Doug asked excitedly, even as Harry tried to use the distraction to sneak his box of cereal into the basket his uncle was carrying.

Unfortunately for Harry, Jack Weatherby was a sharp one, and as soon as he turned to his friend Mrs. Wilkens watched with poorly contained amusement as Jack reached into the basket, being very subtle about it, and placed the box back onto a nearby shelf.

"Of course!" Harry declared. "I'll bet it's going to be loads better than Hermione's."

"Harry…" Jack scolded, and Harry ran a hand through his hair, looking a little sheepish.

"I didn't mean it that way, Uncle Jack! It's just her parents are so _odd_. What kind of a birthday has carrot cake?"

"Hey, now, I happen to like carrot cake…" Jack started, but Harry just rolled his eyes.

"You aren't _ten_," he pointed out sensibly, to which Jack seemed to have no suitable response. Instead he took the diplomatic approach and changed subjects.

Mrs. Wilkens chatted with the both of them awhile. Jack eventually seemed to recall something, and asked if Harry could stay for dinner at the Wilkens' house on Thursday, as he had to work late. Mrs. Wilkens readily agreed – Harry was a delightful house-guest – and then they parted ways.

As she passed Jack, she noted, from the corner of her eye, that the cereal box was back in the basket. It must be genetic, she thought with a chuckle. She hadn't even seen Harry sneak it in this time.

Harry chattered about Doug's upcoming birthday party, and the necessity of sugar to any gathering of children and merriment, and what he hoped his own birthday would entail until they were well away from the store and on the route home. Jack just gave an internal shake of his head and kept one hand on his charge's shoulder as they crossed the road.

The little house the pair lived in was, if Jack were being honest, not that different from the one on Privet Drive. And yet it was, too. For one thing, it was smaller – or at least it looked that way from the street. The lawn and garden were well-kept, but mostly because both of the house's residents were rather partial to puttering about outside. The exterior was nearly identical to that of its neighbours – a skinny, two-story home that was just an inch shy of being a townhouse.

It was only when you knew what you were looking for that you noticed that a lot of the plants were… well, not something you would expect to find in a normal garden plot. Or any garden plot, unless you were a witch or wizard. And some of the windows on the second floor seemed to look into two rooms at once, as if the space inside of the house had over-lapped, and so a spare bedroom was also a study, and a bathroom was also a storage space.

The pair headed inside, Jack giving Harry a reprimand when the boy left his shoes lying haphazard near the door, and unpacked the groceries.

"Are you _sure_ Doug's not a wizard?" Harry asked as Jack put the milk away, and he suppressed a groan. "Only it would be brilliant if he were! Then we'd know each other when we went to school. He's dead nervous about going to his new school, whatsits, in the fall, you know."

Harry sent his uncle a reproachful look, as if this were somehow Jack's fault. Jack himself resisted the urge to sigh. They'd had this conversation a few times before, ever since summer break had started. He had a feeling it had more to do with Harry's own reservations about going to a new school where he didn't know anyone than Doug's.

"I'm sure," he replied, albeit somewhat apologetically, and Harry let out a gusty sigh and flopped onto a dining room chair.

"Alright, enough melodrama. You'd best put that cereal you were so insistent on in the cupboard before I see it," Jack advised. Woefully, Harry got back up and did as told, feeling a little bit better because he _had_ gotten that.

Sometimes he thought Uncle Jack was taking too many pages from the Grangers, Hermione's parents. He distinctly recalled a point in time when there had been a lot more sweet stuff around the house. Not that his uncle had ever spoiled him, exactly, just that he'd been more lax about the candy before they'd moved back to England.

Then again, Mr. and Mrs. Granger seemed to delight in telling people horror stories about teeth and the evils of sugar. Harry had thought the dentist he'd gone to when he was little had been strange, with his talking puppet shaped like a giant toothbrush and his 'war on cavities', but nothing compared to the grim and bleak portrait of pain and despair that Mr. Granger could paint when he really got going.

He supposed if you were a little bit paranoid, like his uncle could be, it would have to have an impact on you.

"Did you finish reading that book I gave you, by the way?" Jack asked, coming up beside him and steering them both towards the living room. Harry nodded.

"Oh, ages ago," he said agreeably. Harry liked books. He'd gotten picked on a bit for it when he'd first started school, as his reading level was rather advanced for the other children his age, but he'd soon proven himself to be too quick and tough to make a regular target.

"What did you think of it?" his uncle pressed, taking a seat in his regular chair and indicating that Harry should plant himself across from him. Oh. They were going to have a 'conversation'.

Harry shrugged, leaning into the armrest of his seat. "It was alright, I guess. Bit boring to be honest."

He'd been a little surprised when his uncle gave him the book. It was a sort of beginner's guide to prophecies and the 'noble art of Divination', and Uncle Jack had always said that that was a shaky business, and Harry'd never seen him do any sort of magic along those lines.

"Right." Uncle Jack ran a hand along his jaw. It seemed like he was going to say more, but then it was as if he changed his mind. "Right. Well. Anyways, I expect we'll be getting your school letter soon."

"And then we'll go to Diagon Alley?" Harry asked, rather eagerly. He'd never been allowed to go to the magical shopping district – didn't even know where it was, truthfully – as his uncle insisted that it was too dangerous, what with Harry's 'history' and all. But he'd promised to take him when it was time for him to begin his schooling, and it was one of the aspects of the whole thing which Harry felt no reservations about whatsoever.

Uncle Jack chuckled. "And then we'll go to Diagon Alley," he agreed. "But there are a few things we should discuss before that happens…"

He trailed off, and Harry waited patiently. Sometimes his uncle wasn't the best at putting his thoughts into words – it seemed as if, in a way, too many things all tried to push out of his mind at once and he had to sort through them – but he always got there.

"…You see, Harry, on the night when – when your mum and dad died, the… er… Dumbledore, Albus Dumbledore, he sent you to go and live with your aunt and uncle," Jack began. Harry gave him a befuddled look.

"You're not married, Uncle Jack," he pointed out.

"No, no I'm not," Jack agreed. "I meant, he sent you to live with your mum's sister and her husband – the Dursleys. You remember, I told you about them?"

Oh, yes. Uncle Jack had told him about the Dursleys, back when Harry was eight and they'd had their big 'talk' about Harry's parents, and Voldemort, and everything. But this was new information.

"Aren't they muggles?" Harry asked, somewhat dubious. "I always thought I ended up with you because you're a wizard…"

Uncle Jack was quiet for a long moment at that, thoughtful.

"Well, Harry, to be honest, I'm not supposed to have you," Jack confessed slowly. "It's a bit complicated, but Dumbledore wanted you to be placed with your mother's family. He believed that it would strengthen the protection she gave you when she died. Blood magic is strong, old magic, and he was right about the technical aspects."

"So what happened?" Harry asked, a sense of foreboding building up his gut.

"I kidnapped you," Jack bluntly replied. "The Dursleys are pretty awful people, Harry," he hastened to explain. "Not dangerous, at least not in an immediate-threat-of-violence sort of way, but they hate magic, and your aunt always sort of resented your mother for being a witch. For anyone to grow up in that house would be a trial, but for a magical person it would be especially unpleasant. I knew I couldn't leave you there. So when Dumbledore left you on their doorstep, I took you home with me instead."

Harry pulled a face. "He left me on their doorstep?!" he asked, incredulous. Jack blinked at him.

"Er… yes," he replied. He had been expecting Harry's negative response to be centered more around the fact that he'd been abducted as a baby.

"Like _the morning paper?_"

"More or less. In his defense, he did put a notice-me-not charm on you, so that only your relatives would see you there."

Harry looked like he'd swallowed a frog. "…I don't think I like this Dumbledore fellow a whole lot," he confessed.

Jack wasn't sure if he should confront that unexpected comment. Instead, he decided to let Dumbledore redeem himself on his own graces, and carried on with the matter at hand. "Anyway, the reason why all this is so important is that, when we get your school letter, a whole lot of people who have been wondering where you are will learn that you're with me."

Harry blinked. "You mean that nobody knows?" he asked. Jack shook his head.

"Nope."

"Oh. …Are they going to arrest you?" Harry seemed quite distressed at this prospect. Jack shook his head.

"They'll want to, definitely. At least at first. But according to the technicalities of wizarding law, an orphan is immediately entrusted to the guardianship of their nearest magical relative. Since we're related, I'm magical, and the Dursleys are not, I had every right to go and get you from them. I just didn't tell anybody first."

"…So you didn't _really_ steal me."

"Well, yes and no. Legally I did not. But in the spirit of the thing, I'd still say it counts."

"Why didn't you tell anybody?" Harry asked, curious and more relaxed now that the odds of law enforcement agents beating down the door had been reduced.

"Safety," Jack replied immediately. "If nobody knew I had you, good or bad, then it would be a lot harder to track us down. Then there was also that bit I told you about before, about Dumbledore wanting to put you with your mother's relatives for the blood magic..."

"Is that the real reason I can't go to Diagon Alley with you?" Harry asked abruptly, a suspicious look on his face. Jack broke into a bit of a smile at that.

"I suppose you could consider it a contributing factor, although even if everyone knew I had you, I still probably wouldn't want you to go until it was necessary. We can't glamour your scar away, and people tend to get a bit batty about that whole Boy-Who-Lived nonsense."

Harry made a face. While his supposed celebrity status in the magical world did have a certain flare of glamour to it, for the most part Harry thought the whole thing seemed a bit rubbishy. A large part of that was probably because it hindered his desire to explore said world a good deal.

"Alright then," Harry shrugged. "Should I do anything?"

"You're not mad?" Jack asked, clearly a little surprised. Harry gave him a reproachful look.

"No," he replied, as if that should be quite obvious.

Jack paused, waiting for further elaboration, but so far as Harry was concerned that simple answer seemed to settle things. So instead he merely shook his head and considered the coming days. "Just the usual. Don't open the door to strangers, and if anyone you don't know shows up when you're at Doug or Hermione's houses, then don't go with them. And if they try to take you-"

"-hit the emergency button. I know." Harry's emergency button was, in fact, a literal button. It was sewn on to the pocket of every pair of pants he owned, and if he said 'help' in parseltongue, it immediately sent the message to Uncle Jack. "Can I watch the telly now?"

Uncle Jack glanced at the clock.

"Alright," he replied. "You can watch until supper, then. I'll call you when it's ready." He headed into the kitchen at that, and Harry cheerfully began to search for the remote between the couch cushions.

A universe away, when another Harry Potter had been that age, he had only ever glimpsed a television show when his aunt and uncle were watching the news, or his cousin left his bedroom door open while he used his. That Harry had been much smaller, paler, and more spindly than this one. He'd been dwarfed by hand-me-down clothes that didn't fit, and wore spectacles held together by a lot of scotch tape and willpower. That Harry had had no friends, few possessions, and had slept in a dark cupboard underneath the stairs.

Jack shook his head, clearing it of thoughts as he put the water on to boil and started gathering the ingredients for pasta in sauce. It would have been quicker to use magic to do it, of course, but that was one of the tricky parts of their particular home.

Not wanting to live in a house to which Harry could never bring his friends, or to raise Harry in a home that was so utterly magical that he could not relate to muggle classmates, Jack had split the place into two – the first floor, which contained the sitting/television room, a bathroom, the laundry, and the kitchen/dining room, were muggle, left structurally as they had been when the house was purchased. The second floor, however, was magic, and it had many more rooms and complexities.

Nothing electronic worked on the second floor, so it was all wizard up there, and magic messed with the telephone, appliances, and pretty much everything else downstairs, so there was a no-magic rule from the landing downward. For the most part it was a good thing, though. Jack personally maintained that there was something to be said for manual labor, in the right amounts, and washing the dishes or folding the laundry never killed anyone.

He was just taking the sauce off the heat when the phone rang.

"Harry?" he called, and the sound of socked feet skidding across carpet could be heard.

"Got it!" the ten-year-old replied, pulling the phone off the received. "Hullo?"

There was a pause. Jack dumped the sauce in with the pasta and set to tossing them together.

"Just a minute," Harry said politely, and then he held the phone away from himself. "'s for you, Uncle Jack."

"Thanks. Set the table?" Jack asked as he took the phone, and Harry nodded, going over to the cupboard for plates.

"Hello?"

"JACK!" A familiar voice practically shrieked from the other end of the receiver. Jack held it away from his ear a bit, wincing.

"Ah. Sarah." He said, in a tone which implied that a very large cockroach had suddenly crawled out from under the fridge.

"Jack, Jack, _darling_, you're going to want to kiss me very shortly!" the voice on the other end replied, still loud enough that someone in the next room could hear it. Harry snorted as he plunked two plastic cups onto the table, and Jack shot him a playful glare.

"Sarah, the Imperius curse is quite illegal. And it doesn't work over the phone," he informed her, rolling his eyes.

"Ha! But no, you'll be flipping over the moon for me on this one. You remember you wanted me to dig up dirt on that Umbridge woman…?"

The rest of the conversation was lost to Harry, as the volume dropped to more normal levels and Jack leaned into the wall, his voice adopting his 'business' tones all at once. Sighing, Harry placed the forks, and then decided to take the initiative and spooned two healthy servings of pasta onto both plates. Uncle Jack could be a very long time when his voice took on that tone, and Harry had learned long ago that it was best to just tuck in rather than wait.

He was about halfway through his plate before Jack rejoined him, looking rather pleased. "Is it alright then?" he asked, gesturing to the pasta. Harry shrugged and nodded.

"It's not gourmet, but it'll do," he said. Jack rolled his eyes. Harry had picked up that line from television, and the first time he'd used it, his uncle had almost shot his dinner out of his nose he'd been so surprised and amused. Now he was practically married to it.

"Shall we check on the potion after dishes?" Jack suggested, after the pair had eaten in companionable silence for a while. Harry nodded enthusiastically.

Jack would never have imagined himself as a potions nut when he was younger, but free from certain negative influences in his life, he found that the subject was actually innately… _peaceful_. It saved him from having to make too many trips to places like Diagon Alley, especially when he began growing many of his own ingredients, and when Harry was old enough to safely be around simmering cauldrons, he actually showed an aptitude for it.

Currently, the pair of them were going through the first-aide potions in one of Jack's simpler medical texts. They'd done one or two a week since break began, and were now on a simple burn salve. Harry had thought the best part was when he'd gotten to mash the solid ingredients together _by hand_. There'd been all kinds of gross things in there.

Dinner was soon finished, and after helping his uncle by drying dishes, the pair made their way upstairs. At the first door on the left, Jack pressed the handle inwards, twisted it once, and then let go and opened it properly. A small potions lab opened up before them. There was one table in the center, with room enough for two cauldrons (upon which bubbled the current project), a comfortable work station, and shelves stacked with the ingredients both bought for stores, and collected from the garden.

Harry dashed over to the cauldron and peered at it, careful not to lean too far and get scolded. Jack waited for him to make his own assessment, and after a moment, his charge looked up at him with a disappointed air.

"I don't think it's done yet," he proclaimed. Then he hopped down from the stool which was by the table for the sole purpose of his examinations, and went over to the book lying by the work station. Jack meandered towards the cauldron and took it in at a glance as Harry flipped the pages to his book-marked goal.

"…yeah, it's not even red yet," he sighed. "This is the most boring part."

Jack shrugged. "Unless we've botched something, I don't think it'll take any longer than the morning."

Harry perked up. "Can we get started on the next one, then?" he inquired. Jack chuckled.

"After what happened last time? Really?"

"…that was a fluke."

"Well, you've certainly learned to clear up properly since then, I'll grant you that."

"I cleared up properly before! It was just… you miss _one_ spot, and…"

"Exactly." Jack leaned near one of the shelves, pretending to mull the idea over in his head as Harry glance at the book, and the next potion on the list. "Well… alright. So long as you agree to take a bath tonight."

"Deal!" Harry declared, and the next few hours were passed pleasantly enough, until Jack glanced at the clock and promptly commanded his nephew into the upstairs bath. Harry went, grumbling a bit because he'd been engrossed, and Jack cleared up their work and set aside the ingredients they'd prepped as he heard the water run.

His knee twinged. It was so faint, that it wasn't anything he would have noticed if he hadn't been standing still, thoughtful in the immediate aftermath of tidying. But it was enough that he couldn't dismiss it as a mere itch, or a trick of the mind.

Pulling up the stool, Jack sat, and let it sink in. For around a decade he'd managed to avoid it. Well… not really _avoid_ it. He'd done things, made preparations, kept his ears and eyes open, but for quite awhile now it had all been in anticipation of something _later_. Technically it still was. And yet, he knew it, they were standing just behind the starting line now, and by summer's end the race would have begun. Not in earnest. Not yet. But enough so that all the old demons would be sure and rear their ugly heads.

Quirrel had returned from his trip to Albania, Jack knew. And he'd brought something with him.

Suddenly filled with a nervous energy, Jack stood, went down the hall, and knocked on the bathroom door. "Alright, Harry?" he asked. An affirmative response came back. Satisfied, Jack headed back in the direction of the potions lab, only this time he simply opened the door without any fuss. A bedroom was revealed, with a simple, comfortable-looking bed set into the middle of it, and a chest of drawers to one side. There was also a closet door, and a nightstand with a few still, muggle pictures set on top. Most were of Jack and Harry, but there were some generally scenic ones as well.

Heading over to the closet, Jack moved a broom lying atop a battered old trunk, and then pulled it open. Reaching in and shuffling around a bit, he eventually produced what looked like a simple piece of parchment, and gently tapped it with his wand.

"I solemnly swear I am up to no good," he intoned, and ink spread across the page as if being pulled along by very fast-moving spiders.

It didn't take him long to find him. There in his office was a dot labeled Quirinus Quirrel, pacing back and forth. And close to that name, written in lettering so faint that you could easily miss it, was 'Tom Riddle'.

But of course, Mr. Riddle didn't have a dot of his own.

The old hatred began to bubble up. For several long minutes, Jack simple stared at Tom Riddle's name, watching it swish back and forth in the office. He wondered if he and Quirrel were speaking with one another, discussing their plans for the Philosopher's Stone. Or was Voldemort merely slumbering as his host took a rare moment to, perhaps, regret his decision to share his body and soul with a monster? Or revel in it?

When he heard the sound of the bathroom door opening, Jack muttered a quick 'mischief managed' and placed the map back into the trunk. He tried to clear his thoughts as he bid Harry his goodnight, going so far as to tuck the boy in, though he was getting rather big for that. If Harry minded, he kept his peace on the subject.

"Uncle Jack?" he managed instead, as the other made to leave. Jack paused, questioning, in the doorway. "Those people… Dumbledore… they won't be able to take me away from you, right? Make me live with the Dursleys?"

Jack offered him a reassuring smile. "They won't," he confirmed. "Trust me."

And Harry, slipping off into sleep, did.

The next morning, as Harry piled his helping of scrambled eggs onto some toast, there came a knock at the door. Jack gestured at him to sit, and Harry listened, suddenly all nerves, as his uncle went to answer it.

"Good morning, Mr…?"

"Weatherby," Jack replied, and Harry could hear a strange tone in his uncle's voice. Putting down his toast, he slipped over to the kitchen doorway and leaned, just a little, until he could make out some of his uncle's back. He thought he saw a wisp of silver on the other side of the door, just above Jack's head.

"Mr. Weatherby. My name is Albus Dumbledore, and I am here concerning one Harry James Potter."

"Well, come in then, headmaster. We thought you might pop by. Your timing is impeccable," Jack said politely, and Harry pulled away from the doorway as his uncle leaned back to let the other man, Dumbledore, in.

Harry didn't want to be seen. He was sure he wouldn't be in trouble for it, not with his uncle at least, but the insecurities he'd felt needling at him the night before began to pluck at his mind again.

"I am correct in assuming that you have Harry Potter here?" Dumbledore asked, and his voice was laced with something… dark. A threat, a promise, a warning all in one. Harry gulped, and his mouth went dry. His earlier apprehensions regarding the man who had allegedly left him on the doorstep of his magic-hating relatives began to resolve into a genuine distrust and dislike in that instant.

"Sit down, Albus. Would you like some tea? We were just having breakfast."

Jack's reply sounded… well, almost _taunting_. As if he were taking some small, gleeful, tiny revenge by being so polite and relaxed.

"I would like to see Harry. Now. Before I have a team of aurors tear this house apart…"

"You followed his Hogwarts letter?" Jack interrupted. "I expected you'd do as much. I could have taken him out of the country if it were my wish to keep him from you, you know – there would have been no means for you to find him then. Harry! Come out and say hello to Professor Dumbledore!"

Harry did not particularly like the sound of that, but his uncle sounded confident and fearless, and that reassured him. He walked from the kitchen, taking in the sight of the elderly man who stood before his uncle, with an expression on his face like vengeance come swiftly.

It softened when he turned to look at Harry. Dumbledore was very old, that was Harry's first impression. He was dressed in a sporadically colourful suit that only matched in so far as chaos went with chaos, and a long, silver beard drooped down from his chin in a very Merlin-esque fashion. Blue eyes twinkled at him from above a delicate pair of spectacles. It seemed to Harry that he was being put under some sort of invisible inspection.

"Albus Dumbledore, Harry Potter. Harry, this is the man I mentioned last night," Jack offered, coming to stand beside him and placing a hand on his shoulder.

"Hello Harry," Dumbledore greeted, his expression unreadable. "You know, a great many people have been looking for you for-"

"I know," Harry replied. "Uncle Jack told me."

He didn't at all appreciate the deep look of concern that comment garnered.

"Harry, why don't you go finish your breakfast? I do believe the headmaster has a lot of questions he'd like to ask me, and I don't think he wants to ask them all in front of you. It might inhibit his expressiveness."

Harry gave his uncle an appraising look. "Do you think he wants to swear at you, or hex you?"

Jack chuckled. "Possibly both. If the professor is agreeable, we'll cast a silencing charm."

"Don't be too long," Harry advised, shooting Dumbledore a nervous glance. "You said we could have Hermione over," he reminded. Jack nodded, and then, double-checking his wards on the kitchen, turned back to Dumbledore.

The older wizard cast the charm, his expression one of deep mistrust.

"I wasn't aware that James Potter had any living relatives under ninety, apart from Harry," he declared. Jack cocked an eyebrow at him.

"Reading his mind already? I suppose I shouldn't be surprised. You'd want to be sure he wasn't under a glamour, or some kind of trick."

"You are familiar with legilimency?" Dumbledore inquired, a slight change in his expression the only betrayal of his startlement. Jack thought the answer self-apparent, and so ignored it. Not that he had much of a chance too, either, as Dumbledore seemed to immediately realize that was off-topic and moved on with due haste.

"What you have done is… who are you? How did you find Harry, and why did you take him from the safety of his relatives? Why haven't you come forward before now?"

Jack spread his hands. "Sit, please, professor," he encouraged, and after a long, tense moment, Dumbledore did as requested. His eyes twinkled like mad. Up until now, Jack had made no eye-contact with him. This time he did, but the reaching probes of the other's mind slid off his internal shields like rain on wax paper.

"What I have done is taken a boy from a home where he would not have been loved, and raised him as best as I could. I am Jack Weatherby, and I found Harry because I knew where he had been taken. I did not pluck him from the 'safety of his relatives', as you so inaccurately phrase it, for he is still technically _in_ the 'safety of his relatives'. And as for not coming forward… well, I'm certain _you_ can appreciate the abundant number of threats to his well-being. Perhaps it was a little over-cautious, I'll grant, but I saw no reason to explain my actions."

The two men regarded each other in silence for a long while. Jack took in the familiar countenance of Albus Dumbledore. It had been years and years since he'd seen the man in person, and he'd forgotten how intimidating he could be when he was not playing the part of the genial grandfather. Not that he disliked Dumbledore – no, Albus Dumbledore was among the people whom Jack hoped to help, to protect and save – but he couldn't honestly say the he trusted him anymore, either.

At least, he did not trust him to be infallible, nor did he trust him to do what was right for Harry. Neither did he doubt the man's noble intentions.

"Jack Weatherby is an assumed name?" Dumbledore asked at last. Jack nodded.

"It is," he said, and if the honesty surprised the other man, it didn't show.

"Am I correct in believing that you will not tell me your real one?"

"You are."

"And how, exactly, are you related to Harry?" Dumbledore gained a little intensity for this question. Jack leaned forward, his manner rather conspiratorial as he cast a glance about the room.

"…Genetically." He stated dryly. Dumbledore did not look amused. Jack sighed and leaned back. "Honestly, I would assure you of my noble intentions, but you won't take my word. You clearly know that I _must_ be related to Harry, however, because of the blood wards on this house. The auror curse-breaking team outside won't be able to get past them, by the way. Old magic."

"It is indeed," Dumbledore agreed. "Not unlike the spell I put in place at the Dursley residence. Am I correct in assuming that is where you encountered it?"

Jack smiled. "You are," he replied. Dumbledore's eyes were still hard as diamonds.

"I do believe the auror curse-breakers _will_ be able to get through, however. Certain additional factors were taken into place when I set up my protections at Harry's aunt's home…"

Lily's sacrifice. Jack waved a hand rather airily. Dumbledore was wrong, but he didn't need to know that. "Assuming they even _do_ manage it, what gives any of you the right? The very fact the wards exist proves that I am Harry's relative, and a wizard. I am within my legal rights to take custody of him, and am under no compulsion to answer to you."

"Harry has been missing for ten years! You have to answer for that, even if antiquated pureblood laws would favor your claim!" Dumbeldore snapped, and Jack's eyebrows went up. He'd never heard him talk like this, like his temper had gotten the better of him.

"The only person who has any right to demand answers of me is sitting in the next room eating his eggs," Jack said, feeling his own anger simmer up from beneath the surface. He'd become a better master of his emotions over the years, but they were still a fierce thing when riled. "You were a friend of Lily and James', you were an open opposition to Voldemort, you are the head of the school which I intend to send Harry to, but you are not his guardian. Not his keeper. I am not your employee, your servant, I am no part of your Order, and as I have broken no laws, I need not answer to you in your Wizengamot capacity."

"If you try and send aurors after me, I will repel them with equal force. And what is more, I will extend my grievances to the Ministry of Magic, along with a detailed expose on your attempt to place him with an unsuitable muggle family. The wizarding public will just eat that up, don't you think? I know Lucius Malfoy would _love_ to get some of the comments the Dursleys would make on the front page of the Prophet. Now me, I know how to talk to reporters, but I don't think 'get off my lawn, you filthy freaks, before the neighbours see you' would spin Harry's alternate guardians very well."

Jack saw Dumbledore's eyes flicker, briefly. Following the gaze, he glanced down at his sleeve. With a sardonic smile he rolled it up, revealing the pale, slightly scarred but otherwise unmarked forearm beneath. He repeated the process with the other sleeve as well, just for good measure.

"The only ones who know about the Order of the Phoenix are its members, the Death Eaters who fought them, and a few privy individuals in the MLE, yes?" Jack said. "But of course, that's just naivety. People talk. They always do, and rumours spread."

"…You say his name," Dumbledore offered, his face now an unreadable mask. He didn't know what to make of Jack, that much was clear.

"I do," Jack agreed. "Although, I must say, if he were to actually come back to full power again, I probably wouldn't. Just to avoid the unpleasant inconvenience of frequently summoning Death Eaters to my location, mind."

"You believe he will come back?" there was a curious note to the old wizard's voice.

"I am certain that he's still out there. Whether or not he actually comes back, or is 'finished off' before he can get that far remains to be seen."

Dumbledore sighed, raised a hand to his wrinkled brow as he suddenly seemed to relax, just a little. Giving in to the headache this entire affair had given him.

"I would offer you some of the anti-headache draught Harry and I brewed last week, but I don't think you'd trust me quite so far," Jack intoned lightly.

"With regards to your claim of Harry's guardianship, there is the matter of his godfather…"

"Sirius Black. I know." Jack leaned into his seat, a familiar stone settling into his stomach. "He hasn't attempted to contact Harry since his release from Azkaban, nor has he attempted to evoke his right to guardianship. If he had, I would have at the very least discussed the matter with him. And before you ask, yes, if he had addressed a letter to Harry and sent it off with an owl, it would have made its way here. I wouldn't have denied him that – if he had sought it."

"Mr. Black has been impossible to track down since his release."

"He's hunting the rat, I'm sure," Jack replied. "If those bunglers from the Ministry hadn't let him escape from custody – I mean, they _knew_ he was a bloody animagus…" he trailed off.

"There is also the matter of his years of imprisonment to consider. Four years in Azkaban for a crime he did not commit has undoubtedly wrought havoc with his mind."

Jack shrugged. "The healers pronounced him sane. I read about it in the Prophet. I'd have written him a letter myself, but frankly I didn't know what to say. No, my money says he's hunting down Pettigrew. That one cares more for avenging his friends than raising their child."

"You seem rather harshly critical of him," Dumbledore noted. Jack glanced away for a moment, and to the other it seemed a somewhat guilty expression passed fleetingly across his face.

"Perhaps I do, at that. And perhaps I'm wrong. Maybe he has been hunting me all of this time, myself and Harry – and simply never thought to do anything as mundane as write a letter. Maybe he's given his godson up for dead… or perhaps I simply shouldn't judge him for choosing the weight of vengeance first."

"It is also possible that something unfortunate befell Mr. Black after his release," Dumbledore offered.

Jack stiffened for a second, but then nodded. "…I suppose it is," he agreed quietly. "Regardless, as he has made no move to claim Harry, and was unable to at the time when I did, my own claim still stands."

"And if Mr. Black were to turn up tomorrow, demanding his rights?"

Jack shook his head. "If that were to happen, I would first seek to discuss the matter with him. But if he were unreasonable, if he simply wished to take Harry and be away, I would fight him, if only for the reason that it would not suit Harry to be so terribly uprooted."

Dumbledore held his gaze for a moment, and then glanced about the room, seeming to take it in properly for the first time. "This seems like an ordinary muggle residence," he mused. Jack nodded.

"It's a half-and-half. The first floor is muggle. Part of it's for guests, but part of it's also for Harry's sake. And mine. Most wizards act as if living muggle-style is like being condemned, but I find it can be pleasantly distracting. The upstairs is a more magic-influenced environment. We don't have a floo, though – security reasons."

Dumbledore nodded, taking in his words and explanation. "I must confess, when Harry vanished, I imagined a considerably darker fate for him than that of an unknown relative whisking him off to a quiet life," he declared.

"I figured you would be keen enough to know it wasn't all an illusion," Jack replied with a slight nod of his head. "Others would have demanded veritaserum and all sorts of melodramatic measures before accepting the idea."

"Do not mistake me, Mr. Weatherby," Dumbledore said sharply. "I have by no means put you past suspicion."

"Good man," Jack said agreeably. "I wouldn't put me past suspicion either. Or any of your professors, which brings us on to more immediate concerns – such as Harry's upcoming education."

Dumbledore seemed to brighten a bit at that. "Ah, yes. You mentioned that you do in fact hope to send him to Hogwarts?"

"I do," Jack agreed. "Provided certain precautions to ensure his safety are taken."

Dumbledore frowned. "It is a well-known fact that Hogwarts is the safest location in all of wizarding Britain, Mr. Weatherby," he declared, a slightly scolding tone to his voice, as if to chastise Jack for suggesting otherwise.

"If you will humour me, headmaster," Jack replied, "I'd like to tell you a story."

Curious, Dumbledore acquiesced. Jack carried on with a nod.

"It's a story an old friend of mine told me once. You see, a long time ago, there was this wealthy, rather paranoid man who lived in a secluded estate. The paranoid man was always afraid that someone was out to get him, as a fortune-teller had told him that he would die a most grisly death, and so he vowed to make his home the safest he possibly could. The place became a veritable fortress. He took out all of the windows, so that no one could break in through them, or hit him by spell or projectile through the bars. He warded the place against wizards and muggles, werewolves and vampires, and all manner of nasty magical creature. Every day he took plenty of vitamins and ate a balanced diet to keep his health up, and he made sure the house was spotlessly clean, so that he was rarely ever ill and never terribly so. Each door in the house had a dozen locks on it, and only he knew the combination to any of them – and they were all different. The doors, the walls, the whole house was reinforced to the nines, so that a bomb could go off in one room and you wouldn't even notice from the next.

The man also kept a dog, a loyal guard dog, who was his eyes an ears on the property and patrolled every day until evening, when the man would quickly let him in to be fed and sleep, before bolting the door shut behind him again.

One evening, the man was feeling particularly paranoid, and so when he opened the door to let the dog in he did so with undo haste. It was only when he had re-latched the last lock that he realized his mistake – the dog was not his dog at all, but a mangy, starving wolf, who had seen the man drag his dog inside every day and had known that was his chance. As the man struggled to re-open his locks, the wolf lunged and tore him apart. It was a most grisly death."

Dumbledore regarded Jack solemnly as he finished his tale. "So you see, professor, any place is only as safe as the people – or animals – in it."

"I understand your concerns, Mr. Weatherby. Surely you must know that student safety is of the utmost importance to me." He wasn't at all certain what to make of the look Jack gave him at that. It was, strangely, knowing – as if he saw somewhere a half-truth or secret.

"I have… concerns regarding two members of your staff," Jack said, not responding to Dumbledore's comment. The old wizard's brows went up in mild affront.

"You are awfully audacious for a man who could still be accused of kidnapping…" he noted. Jack grinned.

"Only with the best intentions, I assure you. But fine. Let me make myself plain, let us set this whole matter into the open before we go any further. My blood wards are strong. Even if you took Harry to his aunt and uncle's today – which you won't – I think it would be safe enough to assume that he would have a good deal of trouble considering the place home, which is an important aspect of such magic. Likewise, I doubt his aunt would take him. A baby is one thing. A ten-year-old is another, as I'm sure most adoption agencies will tell you. Not only would you be making enemies of the both of us, but you would be physically endangering Harry in a very large way. If you try and keep him at the school, I will have _you_ charged with kidnapping. I'm certain the trial would drag on, perhaps even for a year or two, but at the end of it I would win, and Harry would resent you greatly for trying to separate him from the only family member he's ever had.

And if, on the off chance you manage to produce Sirius Black from the woodwork, we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. Black's claim is legal. Yours isn't. Satisfied?"

"You will have to come to the Ministry to validate your claims before an official judge," Dumbledore replied after a moment of stillness.

"Ah. You see, there's a bit of a loophole with that," Jack countered, having expected this to come up. "I looked into it you know. During the war with Voldemort, so many witches and wizards were dying that the Ministry relaxed the standards for custody claims, so that the only requirement was that proof of blood and magic – or, barring any surviving magical relations, blood – be provided to a member of the Ministry or Wizengamot in order to claim any children orphaned at war time. Technically speaking, Harry _was_ orphaned during war time, albeit at the very end. And when you came to this household, Chief Warlock, you were immediately presented with proof of blood and magic. Literal blood magic, in fact."

If Dumbledore were at all inclined to look flabbergasted, he would have then. As it stood his jaw _did_ go a little slack. Jack grinned.

"I thought that was a nice touch, personally. The paperwork at the Ministry should be finished self-updating by now."

"… I… see…"

"Normally, I find the Ministry's tendency to just let things automatically flow like that – without paying proper attention to it – a bit annoying, you know. But at the moment I'm actually rather fond of the habit. Of course, by tomorrow morning if whoever works in that department bothers to read any of the papers under their nose, they will have gotten word out, and it'll be known that Harry Potter has been claimed by a magical relative… but I already knew that would happen."

Dumbledore regarded him solemnly. "Had you attended Hogwarts, Mr. Weatherby, I am almost positive you would have been in Slytherin."

"Nah," Jack replied, shaking it off dismissively. "I wasn't this crafty when I was eleven. In fact, I was a bit of an open book back then."

"Indeed?"

"Oh, sure. Life will do that to you. The loyal Hufflepuff at eleven gets betrayed by their best friend at twenty, and suddenly the loyalty is tainted with suspicion. The brave Gryffindor jumps into the fire, only to find that it actually _does_ burn, and afterwards their courage falls short of the flames. The wise Ravenclaw discovers that all of their knowledge cannot stop their family from dying, and rejects their studies as futile. And the cunning Slytherin's ambition leads to their own deception and enslavement, and ultimately renders them powerless."

"I take it then that the open book of eleven-year-old Jack Weatherby was read by malevolent eyes?"

"Read, misread, spat upon and the pages burned," Jack agreed quietly, some part of himself retreating into a darker place. "But I like to think I'm still an honest man, when I can afford to be."

Dumbledore opened his mouth, and as if he could predict the questions that would come – and he probably could – Jack broke in abruptly.

"_When I can afford to be_. Besides, lies and secrets may breed one another, but they are not the same. And we should get back to the matter at hand. Your school."

"I have full confidence in my staff, Mr. Weatherby. Most of them have served at the school for years, and are exemplary instructors…"

"…And my problem isn't with _most_ of them, although I would say your definition of 'exemplary' needs some brushing up on if the rumours I've heard about Snape and Binns' teaching methods are any indication. On the note of Snape, however, I have further concerns revolving around his status as a Death Eater."

"Former Death Eater," Dumbledore said promptly. "Severus has exonerated himself. He has my implicit trust."

Jack snorted. "You'll forgive me if I don't take your word over the rest of wizarding Britain's for the man's character." Actually, Jack knew that Snape's status as spy and turncoat-for-the-light was a genuine one. That wasn't really the issue, but it was something he could latch onto. "From what I've heard, he's an abysmal teacher – Hogwarts has produced _no_ new Potions Masters for the duration of his employment, or indeed, very many potioneers at all – he has a unquestionably shady history, a personal motivation to dislike Harry, and a remarkably unpleasant personality. Not to mention the fact that he only 'changed sides' at the very _end_ of the conflict."

"It was a critical point, I assure you," Dumbledore said solemnly. "Severus has gained my trust for reasons personal to him, which I cannot divulge. I refuse to remove him from his position at the school. Even if I were to agree to such a thing, it is far too close to the new school year to do so now."

"I thought you might say something like that," Jack nodded. "But from my position, Severus Snape is a sincere issue, and if I hear one whisper of danger with regards to him, I shall take Harry out of your school whether or not it was the one his parents went to. I don't want to. I would like him to attend Hogwarts, and learn all he can. But he has an aptitude for Potions, and I won't see him hindered by a former Death Eater, no matter whose trust the man has."

"I assure you, I have the utmost confidence in Severus' abilities to see past decade-old differences," Dumbledore said solemnly, and Jack wondered if he really believed that.

"Very well. I'll let that particular matter rest for now. The second issue, however, is one I will not be moved on," he carried on. "Professor Quirrel, your Defence Against the Dark Arts instructor."

"Quirinus?" Dumbledore asked, clearly surprised. "He only recently returned from a trip abroad. His credentials are very solid. What is your conflict with him?"

_The fact that he's got Voldemort stuck on the back of his head_, Jack's internal voice snapped, but he fought it down. "I believe you yourself have begun to suspect what I do. Quirrel's 'trip abroad' was to Albania, was it not?"

Dumbledore nodded, his gaze on Jack growing sharper.

"And something lurked in Albania, something which he brought back with him. A shadow. A wraith."

"How did you learn this?" Dumbledore asked. "I had begun to suspect that something was awry with him, I will confess, but only just…"

"The answer to that is another of my secrets, I'm afraid. But suffice it to say, it's not garlic the man is hiding in his turban. I won't have Voldemort teaching Harry Defence Against the Dark Arts, whether in person or through Quirrel by proxy."

"You mean to imply that he is literally possessing Quirinus?" Dumbledore asked, rising from his seat. Jack nodded.

"Of course. You don't think he brought him to Scotland in a bottle, do you? The fool willingly let Voldemort's soul possess him. Frankly, I don't know what you're thinking anyway, letting a man whom you at least _suspect_ of harboring that monster teach school children."

"The Defence position is always re-opening," Dumbledore defended somberly. "It is difficult to fill, particularly because of its reputation, and particularly on short-notice. I had only just begun to suspect… but I admit, I had also thought to keep him close. Where I could watch him. I believe I know what Voldemort seeks to gain, now that he has gathered enough strength to begin taking such steps…"

"I won't ask you what it is," Jack replied, not adding that he already knew, "but Quirrel goes. At the very least he needs to be exorcised of Voldemort's presence, and if that doesn't fry his brains beyond repair, I would say his teaching credentials ought to be severely undermined by his willingness to share body-space with a dark wizard."

"I promise you, the matter shall be thoroughly explored, and if what you claim is true then he will be dealt with accordingly." Dumbledore agreed. "Although filling the Defence position now will be trying…"

"At least he ought to have most of his lesson plans done," Jack offered. "Anyone willing and competent should be able to pick it up from there."

The conversation turned almost normal after that, although Jack could easily see that Dumbledore still had many questions he wanted answered. But he insisted that there wasn't time enough, Harry had probably grown restless in the kitchen, and finally Dumbledore yielded Harry's Hogwarts Letter, and with one last, long check of the boy, left.

"I'm surprised he didn't make me lift my shirt and look for bruises," Harry muttered darkly as the headmaster left. Jack sighed, resting a hand on his head.

"I put him an awkward position. Sometimes it's easier to believe the worst of people than the best, especially when you've spent a lot of time dreaming up nightmare scenarios…" _Remus is going to kill me,_ Jack thought, feeling a twinge of guilt about that and not for the first time.

Harry pulled the Hogwarts letter and supply list from Jack's unresisting hand, and poured over it.

"Can we go to Diagon Alley today, then?" he asked, excited. Jack ruffled his hair, noticing that Harry had taken the opportunity to wash the breakfast dishes whilst he and Dumbledore had been talking.

"Oh, very well," he agreed, to Harry's delight. "But, not until this afternoon! Hermione's coming over, remember?"

"Oh. Right," Harry muttered to himself, and Jack grinned at his sudden disappointment with the idea. He had purchased their house in this neighborhood because he knew Hermione's family lived here. He'd wanted Harry to have friends before he went to Hogwarts, and knowing that the Weasleys or any magical family would recognize him on sight, his thoughts had immediately turned to his muggle-born friend.

Of course, moving them to the same area and enrolling Harry at the same school had only left a potential there – Jack had considered approaching the Grangers himself, but couldn't come up with a context that didn't sound weird or suspicious. In the end, however, Harry managed to make friends with the girl all on his own.

Harry couldn't abide bullies. It was one of his most consistent traits, and a good one at that. When he'd seen Hermione getting picked on by several classmates for being a 'teacher's pet', Harry had stepped in. He'd met Doug in a similar way.

The phone rang, and Jack answered. After a few minutes of polite conversation, he hung up, and turned to Harry with a grin.

"I hate to disappoint you, but I'm afraid Hermione's gone and cancelled. It seems something's come up at the Granger household and they're going to be away for the day."

"Really?!" Harry said, with perhaps more enthusiasm than was polite. Jack gave him a look, although there was no genuine reprimand behind it, and Harry backtracked a little. "I mean, oh, darn. Still, no reason to let the day go to waste, right? Can we go to Diagon Alley now?"

"I don't see why not." Harry gave a whoop of delight and ran to go get his shoes.

"Hat, Harry!" Jack called after him. "We don't want to get mobbed if we can avoid it!"

Harry made a face, but deciding not to press his luck, slid a dark-green cap onto his head. The hat pressed down his fringe and successfully hid his trademark scar.

Jack got ready at a more leisurely pace, which caused Harry to dance from one foot to the next as he wrestled with his impatience, until finally the two were out the door. They took the familiar route to the nearest bus station, and Jack had to shush Harry from pestering him with magic-oriented questions when they got on, lest the boy unintentionally break the statute of secrecy.

Jack didn't own a car. For one thing, he didn't care for them very much in general, and for another, he'd never learned how to drive one. Magical, self-driving cars were available in the wizarding world, but they were expensive, and illegal to use without going through a good deal of Ministry paperwork. Jack just didn't have the patience for that, and public transportation suited him fine anyway.

"Can't we take the Knightbus?" Harry asked in a whisper, after they'd found seats.

"I'd prefer to keep my breakfast down, thanks," Jack replied with a look of distaste, and Harry laughed.

The boy was a veritable ball of excitement the entire trip. Though neither he nor Jack realized it, the two made an amusing pair; the silent man, purposeful and calm, and the near-identical boy bouncing around him, filled with gleeful exuberance.

The pair drew a few curious glances in the Leaky Cauldron, but Harry's hat and the fact that no one was earnestly looking for him did the trick, and they passed through without garnering any cries of 'it's Harry Potter!' or such. Jack was relieved, though he kept one hand on Harry's shoulder and one eye on the patrons the entire time.

When the entrance to the alley opened up, Jack allowed himself to enjoy the look of unabashed wonder and delight on Harry's face.

"Got your list?" Jack asked, and Harry nodded and handed it to him. "Alright then. You think about where you'd like to go first-"

"The Quidditch shop!"

"-while we go to the bank," Jack finished, shaking his head in fond amusement. He should have known, really. Harry had been as big of a Quidditch nut as he was, ever since he'd gotten him his first toy broom. "Alright, but only because it's your first time," Jack replied agreeably, and the pair took the scenic route towards Gringotts, letting Harry drink in all the strange sights and sounds.

"Can we get an owl?" Harry asked, spying one as it flitted through the air from the direction of the post office.

"Maybe," Jack agreed.

"Can I get a broom?"

"No. First Year students aren't allowed brooms, and they're expensive."

"Can we go to the book shop after the Quidditch shop?"

"I don't see why not. We'll need to buy your school books anyway."

"Can we… is that Hermione?!" Harry stopped mid-sentence, and Jack felt a grin tug at the corners of his mouth as he followed his nephew's line of vision to the familiar bushy-haired, buck-toothed girl and her parents. They were being led through the throng of shoppers by McGonagall, who appeared to be explaining things as they went.

"Well, I guess we know why she cancelled," he said in amusement as Harry gaped at the sight.

"Hermione's a witch!" he suddenly crowed in delight, and then before Jack could stop him, took off towards her at a dash.

Internally cursing _that_ little bit of recklessness – they would have to have a talk when they got home about not running off into crowds – Jack swiftly followed.

"Hermione!" Harry called out, and the Grangers and McGonagall all stopped at the sound.

"Harry?!" Hermione and her parents said incredulously in unison. Jack sped up as he saw the expression change on McGonagall's face. After all, Harry looked just like James, and if she knew where Dumbledore had gone…

"Well, this is a surprise! Dan, Jean." Jack greeted the Grangers with a nod of his head. "Hermione's a witch then, is she?"

"You're a wizard, Harry?"

"Did you know she was magic, Uncle Jack?"

"You are familiar with the Grangers, Mr…?"

"Weatherby. And I might have had an inkling or two, Harry, but don't look at me like that. You never asked," Jack said, scolding his nephew for the brief glare he received. McGonagall was giving him a very piercing look. "We got our Hogwarts letter this morning as well. I take it you're getting the grand tour?"

"We are," Jean replied with a smile. "You're a… a wizard, then, Jack?" It seemed the concept was taking a while to sink in. Jack nodded.

"I am. Sorry for keeping mum about it, but we have some rather restrictive laws on who we tell what."

The Grangers promptly forgave him – they really were nice people – and introduced Professor McGonagall, who was having a hard time tearing her gaze away from Harry by that point. For his own part, Harry was chattering away excitedly with Hermione, who looked… well, frankly a little relieved, and Jack did the same with the Grangers, who seemed similarly reassured by the sudden arrival of familiar faces.

"Well, we won't keep you any longer," Jack said at last. "Harry and I were going to head for the bank, and I'm sure you'll want to finish your orientation and everything. If you'd like to stop by for dinner, though, you're more than welcome. I was muggle-raised myself so I know it can be a little overwhelming at first."

"You don't say?" Dan declared. Then he and Jean briefly conferred before promptly agreeing to stop by around six, and Harry and Hermione exchanged their goodbyes before Jack began to steer his charge away.

"Finite!" McGonagall suddenly declared sharply, aiming her wand at Jack. There was a pause in the general bustle of shoppers as passersby stopped to stare, and the Grangers looked at her in surprise. Jack raised an eyebrow, and the Transfiguration professor looked distinctly disappointed that her spell had yielded no results.

"Professor?" he inquired. Slowly, McGonagall lowered her wand.

"…My apologies, Mr. Weatherby. It seems I was mistaken about something," she managed after a moment. Jack inclined his head.

"Well, no harm done. Dan, Jean, Hermione. 'Till this evening," he said in farewell, and once they were well enough away, let out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding.

"Is she batty? Why'd she cast that spell at you?" Harry demanded as they made for the front steps of the bank.

"Because she's very clever, and hasn't spoken to Dumbledore yet," Jack replied. "She heard Hermione say your name, and probably knew that the headmaster had gone to track you down this morning. But I look just like you, and that made her less certain that you weren't just some other boy named Harry. She wouldn't expect you to be with a relative," he reasoned.

"So she thought you were wearing a glamour," Harry concluded, finishing the thought.

"Precisely," Jack agreed. The pair entered the bank, and Jack realized he hadn't bothered to reclaim Harry's key from Dumbledore. Or of any of Lily and James' other possessions, for that matter. It wasn't really that important – Jack had more than enough money to cover their expenses – but he would have to address the issue soon enough.

At least it kept him from looking money-grubbing.

"Enter, stranger, but take heed

Of what awaits the sin of greed,

For those who take, but do not earn,

Must pay most dearly in their turn.

So if you seek beneath our floors

A treasure that was never yours,

Thief, you have been warned, beware

Of finding more than treasure there."

Harry read the inscription on the silver doors before the pair made their way into the vast marble hall. "What are they talking about? Angry goblins?" he asked, following his uncle to one of the many goblin clerks.

"Oh, lots of things. Traps, dragons, possibly a sphinx or two – the high security vaults have some pretty nasty protections."

Jack presented the clerk with the key to his own vault, and they were led off to a cart. The Weatherby vault wasn't as deeply located as the Potter one, but the ride was still fair enough that Harry enjoyed it, looking eagerly out the sides for any glimpse of a dragon. Once they'd returned to the surface, however, Harry's mind flew to the impending trip to the Quidditch store, and he chatted about how badly the Chudley Canons had been beaten in the last match to come over the wireless.

"Can we go to a proper game sometime, Uncle Jack?" Harry asked. They'd never actually been to a Quidditch match – in truth, Harry hadn't been to most places in the magical world yet.

"Maybe," Jack said agreeably. "They'll have games at Hogwarts, too, don't forget."

"Think I'll get on a team?"

"I'd say you've got a fair chance."

They didn't actually buy anything in the Quidditch supply store, although Jack agreed to keep an open mind towards the fact that Harry's birthday was coming up. The book store was fun, if a little crowded. Jack let Harry pick out one frivolous book to go with his school texts, and Harry happily perused the shelves, eventually emerging with a small green book entitled _Magical Reptiles of Britain_, by Ophiucus Olles.

The apothecary was the next stop, and Jack had to refuse Harry several times when the boy asked for ingredients that seemed particularly bizarre or fascinating, but would only be used in potions still too advanced for him. Instead they stuck to the school supply list. Harry's disappointment didn't last once they were out of the shop, though – the excitement of the alley was still too much for him to be dimmed by petty things.

"Lunch?" Jack suggested, and Harry grinned. They stopped at a little café with brightly coloured umbrellas outside, and ended up swinging past Florean Fortescue's for some ice-creams as well. The pair then headed for the Owl Emporium.

"I think barn owls are nice looking," Harry put in as they examined the cages.

"Don't be silly. Snowy owls are the best," Jack replied, and an agreeable hoot answered him from behind. A beautiful white owl sat in her cage there, strangely almost hidden behind two screech owls. For a moment, Harry thought his uncle might have been hypnotized. Then, shaking himself out of it, the man reached over and plucked the cage from the racks.

"Well. We've found her," he said softly. She was a nice-looking bird, Harry had to admit. His uncle bought her and a packet of owl treats, and it was only once they were moving away from the shop that he seemed slightly guilty about failing to consult his nephew first.

"Here, I'll let you two make proper introductions," Jack offered, handing him the cage.

"What should we call her?" Harry asked as he examined her politely. It was kind of funny, really. He'd never taken his uncle for an animal nut.

"Oh, I'm sure you'll think of something," Jack replied. There was an odd note to his voice again – Harry gave him a thoughtful look.

"Me?" he asked. "I think she's _your_ owl, Uncle Jack."

That point was rather lightly debated on the way to Madame Malkin's clothing shop. Jack insisted that she was both of theirs, but Harry maintained that it was perfectly alright, his uncle was allowed to have a pet – he needn't feel embarrassed about it. A girl owl with pretty white feathers was a right manly familiar.

"You don't like her?" Jack had finally asked, and Harry shrugged.

"She's a nice owl. But I'm pretty sure she's yours."

The owl gave a rather affirmative-sounding hoot.

Harry then launched into an explanation of how he'd read a book on magical familiar last year, and how certain wizards and witches, and even squibs, just had better affinities with certain animals, which pushed them past the normal sphere of pet or companion and into the traditional magical bonds.

At the clothing store, Jack hung around, keeping an eye on the proceedings especially when Harry was asked to take his hat off. The boy wisely pulled his fringe across his forehead, but it might not have been a necessary precaution – there were so many students in for fittings, it being the day the letters were sent out, that Madam Malkin barely paid him any mind.

"There's an awful lot of black," Harry remarked as they left the shop, with regards to his school robes. Jack shrugged.

"It'll brighten up a bit when you get Sorted into your school house – then the house's colours will show up on your tie and trim and such, but yeah, I suppose it is a bit dark." Particularly by Harry's tastes, Jack mused, as the boy was quite fond of vibrant colours. His lime-green shirt attested to that quite clearly.

"So, wait, if I end up in Hufflepuff, I'll have to wear even _more_ black?"

"Yup."

"Bugger that, then."

"Harry!" Jack scolded, trying not to laugh. "I think the fact that the other colour is _bright yellow_ balances it out in the long run."

The discussion of Hufflepuff fashion sense tapered off as they arrived at Olivander's. Before they went in, Jack took the opportunity to shrink all of their purchases and stuff them into his pockets. Except for the owl, of course, whom he slipped up and called 'Hedwig', much to Harry's amusement.

"I knew you'd already named her," he declared smugly. His uncle didn't often do things just for himself, and so Harry didn't begrudge him it.

Jack rolled his eyes, but did seem faintly embarrassed as he led Harry into the wand shop.

"Ah…" said Ollivander when they entered, taking in the sight of them both. His eyes flickered briefly to Harry's cap, or more specifically, to the portion hiding the top of his forehead. "Mr. Potter, and…" he paused, taking in Jack. "…friend. I had hoped you might find your way to me this summer."

Harry shifted, uncomfortable. He glanced at Jack, who gave him a reassuring nod, and then it was down to business as Ollivander set about deducing which wand would suit his current client. Jack took a seat on a dusty old chair by the door, and fed Hedwig an owl treat as they watched the scene unfold. Wand after wand was placed into Harry's hands. Most were snatched away almost instantly. A few produced a spark here or there, but nothing substantial.

As he worked, Ollivander explained the intricacies of wand selection to Harry, who seemed to be getting just generally put-out by the whole process.

"Phoenix feather, willow, eleven inches. Very good for enchanting," Ollivander said, and when Harry took the wand he had his best results yet. White sparks flew, faint and whispy, from the tip.

"Hmm. Not bad. Still, I think we can do better…" Ollivander began, moving to take the wand, but Jack stopped him.

"Set it aside, if you will," he requested instead. The wandmaker regarded him for a moment, as if he had forgotten that the man even existed, but then gave a dismissive nod and did as requested.

More wands were produced, Harry looked like his wrist might be starting to cramp, and finally Ollivander, with a contemplative look, disappeared into the back room. He re-emerged shortly after with a most familiar item.

"Holly, eleven inches, supple, with a single phoenix tail feather. An unusual combination, this one," Ollivander said. Jack watched as Harry gave it a wave, and…

A few sparks. He blinked. So did Ollivander. So did Harry, for that matter, who seemed to have been expecting a bit more of a reaction going off of the wand's introduction.

Clearly disappointed, the wandmaker moved to take it, but once more Jack halted him. "I would appreciate having that one set aside as well," he requested. Ollivander did not seem well-pleased, but did as asked, and Harry took the opportunity to rub his wrist. After a moment, Ollivander disappeared into the backroom again, mumbling quietly to himself.

"Does it always take this long?" Harry asked.

"I'm not sure," Jack confessed. "I took a while to find mine, too, but I do believe the process is faster for some."

After a minute, Ollivander emerged once more, this time holding a wand which just screamed 'freshly made' for some unfathomable reason. "Yew, nine and a half inches, unicorn tail hair. Another unusual combination," he offered. Harry took up the wand and swished it through the air, to a raucous shower of multi-coloured sparks. He grinned, turning excitedly to Jack.

"It worked!"

"So I've seen," Jack agreed. He re-directed his attention to Ollivander. "We'll take all three, and a wand-maintenance kit."

Ollivander looked as though he might protest, but after a moment he subsided, and pulled a kit off of one of the shelves.

"The unicorn which gave the hair for that wand was quite a lovely creature," he said instead. "I do believe she died quite recently. A shame. She gave only the one hair, you see, as she was still quite young."

"How did she die?" Harry asked, as Ollivander rang up their purchases and gave Jack the price.

"Attacked," Ollivander replied. "It takes a rare resolve to become the sort of being capable of killing a unicorn."

"I wouldn't phrase it that way," Jack cut in, handing over the galleons and gathering the wands.

Ollivander looked at him, then, and it seemed as though his eyes saw straight through Jack. His occlumency shields remained strong. But for some reason, that failed to reassure him.

"Of course you would not, Mr. Potter," the old wizard replied. Jack stiffened, and then, rather briskly, led Harry out of the shop.

"Creepy," Harry declared, once they were back on the street.

"Every time I see that man, he never fails to alarm me," Jack muttered, casting a suspicious glance backward. Then he shook his head and gave Harry his wand, tucking the other two away.

"What did you buy three for?" Harry inquired.

"You have to ask, with your habit for breaking things?" Jack replied. He grinned. "We'll talk more about it later. For now, let's get you your school-standard cauldron and quills and things, shall we?"

Harry nodded agreeably, and a few minutes later was trying to talk Jack into buying him a self-writing quill. He failed, but did actually manage to obtain a self-inking one.

"Why they don't just let you take pens, I'll never know," Jack muttered. Harry nodded his agreement, but then paused as their trip to the cauldron shop brought them past a store declaring itself to be the 'Magical Menagerie'.

"Did you hear that?" he asked, cocking his head to the side. Jack paused, listening, and then his eyes widened slightly.

"_Death! Death to the prey! Kill you, dead, dead, dead!"_

Curious, Harry started forward, listening to the sound of what was obviously some sort of snake as it continued to throw death-threats into the air. Jack gave the shop-keeper a nod as he followed. A familiar, squash-faced cat yowled at him from beside the counter.

"_Die! Pain, suffering, a thousand poisons course through your veins!"_ the voice continued.

At last Harry tracked it down to a space nearly lost behind a tower of clattering bird-cages, mostly filled with ravens. It took him a moment to deduce what had happened.

One of the rattling bird-cages had knocked into a rather unstable-looking column of miscellaneous creatures behind it, and at least one cage had tumbled downwards to collide with a snake cage below.

The reptilian occupant of said cage was currently rounding in on – or attempting to round in on – the occupant of the fallen cage, as the bars between them had split open. Harry blinked at the 'prey', which turned out to be a very sleek-looking white rat, who was currently throwing the decimated remains of his little rat-house at the snake's nose. His aim was pretty good, too.

Harry felt his uncle lean of his shoulder.

"I want him!" Harry suddenly declared on impulse.

"The snake?" Jack asked, sounding exasperated. This would not be the first time Harry had asked for a snake as a pet. "You aren't allowed to take snakes to Hogwarts…"

"Not the snake, the rat," he replied. _"Hey, you snake, piss off,"_ he hissed at the necklace-sized serpent.

"_You piss off!"_ the snake replied testily.

"_Language, both of you,"_ Jack threw in, as he couldn't resist. Then, being taller than Harry, he reached over and pried the cages apart, letting his nephew pluck the white rat from the ruins of his former home.

"I can't believe you want a rat. That's almost worse," Jack mumbled, unable to suppress the image of 'Scabbers' resting in false innocence on Ron's lap.

"He's cheeky," Harry replied, grinning as the tiny rodent sat up in his hand and examined him.

"Oh, well then. You two will be the best of chums, I'm sure."

"So I can have him?!"

"Since you seem to insist that Hedwig is mine, I don't see why not." Jack agreed. "But you'll have to take proper care of him while you're at school."

Harry swore he would, and so Jack purchased a decent-sized cage and other rat-oriented equipment. As they left the shop, Hedwig eyed the new acquisition speculatively, and gave an inquiring hoot. Jack chuckled.

"He's a pet, not your dinner," he replied. She looked vaguely disappointed. Frowning, Harry took the cage from his uncle, and insisted on carrying his new pet in his front pocket after that. Jack shrunk his cage and put it in his pockets, with the rest of their shopping bags.

After a few more minutes of Harry and Hedwig giving one another the stink-eye, Jack relented and opened her cage. Whispering their address to her, he let the owl take off, and watched her snowy form disappear into the sky.

The rest of the shopping passed without incident, and Jack felt decidedly relieved that it had as he and Harry rode the bus home. There were so many ways that it could have gone wrong, even in these quieter times, he knew.

"So what are you going to name him?" he asked, gesturing to the whiskered face as it peered around, openly curious.

"…Harry Jr.?"

Jack cocked an eyebrow, and Harry shrugged.

"I hope whomever you marry when you grow up is a little better with names, in that case," he replied.

"He likes it," Harry insisted, fishing a broken cracker out of his pocket. Jack wondered briefly what it had been doing there in the first place as his nephew fed it to the rat. "I'll call him Junior for short."

"Just so long as you don't name him heir to your fortune."

"Hey, at least I didn't fall in love with an _owl_ at first sight."

"Like a rat's any better," Jack joked, tugging his nephew's hat.

They continued on in a jovial manner until they got home, and Harry dashed upstairs to set 'Junior' up in his cage and go through all of his books and things. Jack saw Hedwig in a tree outside, and opened an upstairs window to let her in, setting her cage in his room and gently petting her feathers.

She gave a soft hoot, and playfully nipped his finger.

"You probably aren't aware of the full context of things," Jack said quietly, "but it's very good to see you again."

Hedwig gave him a look, as if to say that of course she understood, and then settled down to grooming.

Jack left the room, instructed Harry that he should wash up before supper, and proceeded downstairs to figure out what he was going to make for dinner with the Grangers. He decided that simple was probably the name of the game after a day full of startling revelations, and pulled the ingredients for a fairly inoffensive curry out of the fridge. Harry clambered down the stairs a few minutes later, with Junior still in his pocket.

"You can't have him at the dinner table," Jack called after him as Harry headed for the sitting room.

"I won't," Harry assured, although he sounded slightly disappointed about it.

The Grangers arrived at six on the dot, with an almost uncanny sense of punctuality, and Harry all but dragged Hermione into the house.

"Can I show her upstairs?" he begged of his uncle. Jack nodded.

"After dinner, though. And say a proper hello to Mr. and Mrs. Granger."

Slightly chastened, Harry greeted the Grangers, who were simply amused.

"Well," Jack began as they sat down. "You three have had quite a day, I'm sure," he commented. Dan and Jean laughed, although he could see a bit of the strain from it all around both of their eyes. Hermione looked frazzle too, he noted, but also as if she were only just coming down from an excited high.

"I remember when I learned I was a wizard," Jack offered. "It was wonderful and strange all at once. And of course, my immediate reaction was that it couldn't possibly be true."

"Your parents were normal, then?" Dan asked, and Jean batted his arm as Hermione's cheeks pinked in embarrassment.

"Dan, don't say it like that," she scolded.

"Sorry, dear. Hermione. I didn't mean it that way, it's just that other word…"

"Muggle?" Jack offered.

"That's the one. It sounds a bit… offensive."

"'Non-magical folk' is the politically correct way of putting it," Jack offered, nodding his head in understanding. "But even then it's probably a little rude to define people by what they _aren't_."

"Honestly, Dan, it doesn't sound any worse than most of these magic-folk words. _Hogwarts_ and _Gringotts_ and the like… I think it's just the culture," Jean Granger insisted, and when she'd gone 'honestly' in her slightly-scolding tone of voice, Jack had felt for a moment like he'd slipped and gone back in time.

"I still don't like it," Dan insisted. "Especially not the way that bloke in the book store said it."

"Ah. I see you've encountered the bigoted element already," Jack noted, an apologetic tone to his voice. "Every group of people in the world has them I'm afraid."

"Professor McGonagall warned us about it. She said they were like the magical equivalent of extreme conservatives," Jean agreed. "They don't much care for wizards and witches who are born outside of the community."

"Putting it mildly," Jack nodded. Then, noting the worried looks his comment garnered, hastened to reassure them. "Things have improved considerably over the last decade, though…"

The talk carried on, Dan and Jean asking questions that they either hadn't thought to ask McGonagall, or which they felt she had glossed over a little. Hermione and Harry seemed to be carrying on their own quiet conversation on their end as well, and Jack resisted the urge to roll his eyes as he saw Harry stuffing crumbs into his pocket. Which was wiggling.

He'd be lucky if that rat didn't weigh twice as much by the time he was getting on the Hogwarts Express.

After dinner was finished, Harry took Hermione upstairs almost straight away, and Jack shook his head. He led the Grangers back into the sitting room, and then produced a bottle of firewhiskey from a locked drawer.

"Wizard liquor," he said lightly, pouring them both modest glasses. "Forgive me if I think you could use a stiff drink at the moment."

"What went on between you and the professor earlier today, by the by? If you don't mind my asking?" Dan enquired as he contemplated his drink. Jean took a tentative sip, turned red, and promptly set hers back down.

"Oh, that. No, I don't mind," Jack agreed. "She likely thought I was wearing a glamour."

"Glamour… you mean like a faerie charm to lure and deceive, like in the old stories? Or something else?" Jean asked.

"Actually, you've more or less got the right idea," he said with a nod. "But in specific, I do believe she thought I was making my facial features and such look different. It's a little complicated."

"Everything about this seems 'a little complicated'," Dan replied, taking a drink. His reaction was not dissimilar to his wife's. "Is it some wizard etiquette?"

"Ah, no. What she did was actually rather rude, but given the context, I was willing to forgo my right to be offended."

"Why did she suspect you of being disguised?" Dan pressed. "She acted very oddly afterwards, you know. Jean had to get on her to get back to answering our questions instead of asking her own. She wanted to know all sorts about you and Harry."

Jack leaned back, running a hand across his brow. "It's a long story," he replied. "But since Hermione and Harry are friends, and Hermione's going to be going to Hogwarts and all, I suppose you have a right to know it…"

And so Jack began. Not divulging a lot of specifics, he whittled down the essentials of Voldemort, James and Lily, Harry's remarkable survival, and his stepping in to take Harry rather than his muggle relatives. The Grangers seem a bit offended at his casual dismissal of Petunia and her family as unsuitable, so Jack took a moment to clarify that.

"If they were good people, I wouldn't have had a problem with it," he assured them. "It wasn't about magic. It was about their attitudes."

Then he had to explain how, legally speaking, what he had done wasn't actually kidnapping. And when that was over, it was time to go through why it was that the headmaster of a school had the authority to decide who an unrelated orphan ought to be raised by.

Oddly enough, the more bizarre concepts were the ones that the Grangers seemed to accept the most easily. That Harry had survived a killing curse didn't strike them as utterly preposterous. He supposed, from their perspective, it was no more bizarre than the _existence_ of a killing curse.

"So, if I've got the right of it, then Harry's real name is Harry Potter, and he's sort of famous in your world, and Professor McGonagall thought you were disguised because she believed you had kidnapped him, and made yourself _look_ like his relative?" Dan clarified.

"Right. Because I kept it quiet that I had him."

"So that this Voldenort person's followers wouldn't come after you?"

"Yes. But not just that," Jack agreed. "There would have been others too. There still might be. People who want to raise him to be the next Dark Lord, people who want to turn him into some sort of Champion of the Light – not to mention admirers who might give him a bigger head than he needs to stay healthy, or detractors who will criticize everything he does to try and knock him off the pedestal everyone else is trying to yank him onto…" Jack trailed off.

"Poor thing," Jean murmured. "People can be so utterly silly sometimes."

"So what does this mean for our Hermione?" Dan asked, drawing things back to the Grangers' immediate concerns. Jack shrugged.

"She'll have some trouble at school, first because she's muggle-born, and second because she's Harry's friend. Children can be cruel, and they can parrot the doctrine their parents have taught them without realizing what they're truly saying. Everyone's going to have one eye on Harry, especially as it'll be his first year back in the magical world after disappearing for so long. Sooner or later the spotlight will hit those around him. But Harry's a good friend, and I think the two of them will be a lot of help to each other."

"And if this Voldemort person comes back, like you said he might?" Jean asked.

"The only man Voldemort ever feared was Albus Dumbledore," Jack offered. "That was why he never dared to attack the school. If he comes back I don't doubt he'll target Harry, but he'll be weaker before he's strong again. I can't say Hermione wouldn't be in any danger – anyone close to Harry would be a potential target, as Voldemort fights dirty – but I can promise you, none of us want that monster anywhere near our children. Not even his own followers."

"Professor McGonagall said that when we see Hermione off to school, we won't be able to see her onto the train, since the platform is a place only magic folk can get to," Dan said seriously. "It's going to be like that for us this whole way, isn't it? If we let her go, we're sending her off to someplace we can't follow. Some place where there are people who'll hate her for what she is, and murderers waiting in the shadows…"

"And the whole world is like that," Jack said solemnly. "Not just the magic one. But I can't pretend to know what it's like from your perspective."

The adults sat in contemplative silence after that. Jean and Dan asked a few more questions, which Jack answered, and slowly Jack tried to turn the conversation more towards the light, appealing aspects of the magical world. He explained about floo powder, as it seemed to be a gap in their knowledge, and the various things Hermione would learn to do at Hogwarts. He was frankly surprised at how little McGonagall had actually told them, but then again, he supposed it was easy to forget what muggles might not know when you'd lived around magic your whole life.

He reassured the Grangers as well by giving them a few books he'd purchased ages ago with Hermione in mind, centered around muggle-borns and entering the magical world. He also gave them the contact information for a muggle-born attorney who was very good at dealing with cross-culture legalities and protecting muggle rights.

"Some magical people will try and keep you in the dark, not to mention use your lack of familiarity with our laws against you," he explained. "It's a good idea to make sure you know what they're about before you make any deals. You'll want to warn Hermione about magical contracts, too. You can't make those, but she can, and they can look very innocuous on the outside. Magical oaths, too, but they're harder to make unknowingly."

The Grangers peppered him for more information on magical contracts after that, which Harry happily provided them with, assuring them as well that Hermione would probably learn much of it on her own. "I wouldn't be surprised if she's already cracked open a book or two," he offered good-naturedly.

"Oh, you should have seen her in the book store!" Jean agreed with fond mirth. "We had to pull her out of there for the rest of the tour."

"Harry will probably give her more, too," Jack mused. Sure enough, Hermione appeared at the top of the stairs then with Harry, her arms holding onto a few texts that she'd undoubtedly borrowed from their study.

Jack waved the pair of them down, and seeing this as their cue to head home, the Grangers went to get their coats from the rack.

"Harry said it would be alright if I borrowed these," Hermione explained, lifting the books. Jack nodded.

"You're more than welcome to any of our library," he assured her. "Just don't forget to come up for air when you start in on them."

"I won't," she murmured embarrassedly, accepting her coat from her mother.

They bid the Grangers good night, and when the door had shut behind them, Jack turned to Harry. He noticed for the first time that Junior was on top of the boy's head.

"…So it's a literal rat's nest now," he noted. Harry looked at him in confusion, and then, realizing, reached up and pulled his pet from its perch.

"I didn't even notice him go up there," he muttered. Junior was promptly placed back into his pocket. Harry fidgeted a bit.

"I told Hermione," he confessed. "I mean… she's already seen my scar, and I figured she'd probably read about it in some book or other…"

"I thought you might," Jack replied reassuringly. "Don't worry about it, Harry."

"…Everyone's going to call me 'Potter'," Harry mused rather somberly after a moment. "I don't even know if I can answer to that. I'm used to Weatherby."

Jack regarded him silently for a time. "I know," he said at length. "But it will get easier with time."

Harry could only nod.

**Another Note:** Just to clear up a few things: 'Jack' is Harry, although so far, you and he are the only ones who know that (and possibly Ollivander, but who can say with that man?). Exactly how and why he came back in time, and what he's done since then, will be revealed throughout the course of the story. I don't have any pairings planned, and probably won't for a long while yet, although I can promise there will be no Ginny/Harry except, perhaps, in passing mention of Jack's past. The next chapter will probably be up soon, but after that, expect a slightly longer delay. Oh, and thanks for reading!


	2. Chapter 2

**Author's Note:** I was hoping the get this chapter finished before the weekend, and luckily I did! It's a little shorter than Chapter One, but I felt where I ended it was a good place to stop. A bit of a cliffhanger, actually, so if you don't like those, you might want to wait the week or so it'll probably take for Chapter Three. Special thanks to everyone who has reviewed, favourited, or even just added this to their Story Alert!

**Disclaimer:** I own nothing. :(

* * *

The next morning saw copies of the Daily Prophet and the Quibbler on the kitchen table. _Boy-Who-Lived Alive!_ declared the headline of the Prophet in bold lettering. Jack snorted at it. The front page photo was a picture of the monument in Godric's Hollow, with a caption underneath: _Ministry employee claims adoption papers for Harry Potter have passed through the system. See page eleven for a recounting of Harry's mysterious disappearance!_

The recounting was written by Rita Skeeter, and every bit as over-blown as Jack would expect it to be. The actual main article on Harry's guardianship was fairly sparse. A bit about the employee who noticed Harry's name on several self-filing documents, and then a lot of speculation.

No comments from Dumbledore, but the rest of the peanut gallery – primarily consisting of Fudge and Lucius Malfoy – had put in their two cents. Fudge was trying to 'subtly' imply that he'd known where Harry had been, safe and sound, all along. Malfoy was calling for Harry and his new guardian to make a public appearance, to 'assuage the public's fears and doubts regarding the well-being of that unfortunate boy'. There was a lot of 'as a father myself' rubbish too.

The Quibbler was focused more on a few possible sightings of long-dead wizarding celebrities and the ever-going search for the Crumple-Horned Snorkak.

Nothing on Quirrell being arrested or detained, Jack noted, but then that could be Dumbledore hushing it up. He was still on relatively good terms with Fudge at this point in time, after all.

Harry made a face at the Prophet's headline, but declined to comment. Instead he asked if he could take Junior to Doug's party later that day.

"I'm not sure that would be wise," Jack replied sensibly. "The Wilkens have a cat, don't they?"

Harry frowned. "Why do so many things eat rats?" he demanded in annoyance, stabbing his pancake with his fork. Jack, who would never be the foremost advocate of rodent rights, decided not to try and answer that one.

"You remembered to wrap your present for Doug then?" he asked instead. Harry nodded. Then he reached over and grabbed the Quibbler, which had become something of a common source of entertainment for the both of them, and skimmed through the pages.

"They're going on about that Lockhart again," Harry noted. "This time it says he's actually a woman using a trans-gender transfiguration to disguise herself because of the 'misogyny prevalent in modern wizarding Britain'."

"Huh."

"Says her real name is Gilda Leone, and she used to date Stubby Boardman."

"Poor Stubby. I wonder if he knows she's a fraud?"

"Let's write to the paper and ask," Harry suggested. It was something of a fun pastime for the two of them, sending letters to the Quibbler under the name Harry Potter. More often than not they ended up being published, although they were almost always inquiries about the various conspiracy theories which popped up, and never revolved around Harry himself.

The morning passed in peaceful routine after that, with Harry writing his letter, and the two of them carrying on with their potion projects until Harry's anticipation of the upcoming party started to build, and he became a little too jittery for the delicate process. Shortly before lunchtime the pair left for the Wilkens'.

"Emergency button on?" Jack asked as they walked the few blocks to the residence. Harry nodded.

"Good. Remember to mind your manners."

"I will."

"And have fun."

Harry grinned, and soon enough they were at the house, and Jack was exchanging pleasantries with Mrs. Wilkens as Harry left his gift by the door. They were the first to arrive, but Mrs. Wilkens assured him that they weren't too early.

After being told to come back around four, Jack waved goodbye to Harry and wished Doug a happy birthday, and then turned to head off himself. He noted a flash of white from the corner of his eye, and saw the uncommon sight of a snowy owl, wide awake, sitting in a tree that overlooked the Wilkens' property.

So Hedwig would keep an eye on them. Jack was glad – he'd left Harry at friends' houses before, of course, but with recent developments it seemed a much more risky situation. He was reassured by the knowledge that their location was still a secret to all but Dumbledore (and perhaps McGonagall, depending on how much she'd figured out) and the precautions he'd placed into the neighbourhood over the years.

Heading for the street corner, Jack turned, and a sound like a car back-firing filled the air as he apparated away.

Jack reappeared in a secluded alleyway sandwiched between two rather ragged-looking buildings. As he stepped out, his eyes found a second-story window in a building across the street, which held a tiny sign reading 'Beacon & Bacon, Private Investigators' in cursive print. There were no charms or magical repellants on the structure, nothing to stop a muggle from entering the building, taking the stairs to the second floor, and inquiring after the services therein. Indeed, Mr. Beacon and Ms. Bacon were occasionally hired by muggles, none of whom even realized that they'd had dealings with magical folk. Money was money, after all.

It was one of the reasons why Jack hired them.

Crossing the street, he made his way up to the office, and before he could even consider knocking on the door it was flung open and a well-manicured hand grabbed him by the wrist.

"Jack!" Sarah Bacon crowed merrily. "What on earth took you so long? I expected you to come ages ago!"

"My nephew received his Hogwarts letter," he explained, freeing his hand with a slight wince. "He couldn't wait to go to Diagon Alley and pick up his supplies."

"Oh, _lovely_, I'm sure he'll do wonderfully in whatever house it is you want him to end up. You came at a perfect time! Mr. Beacon is out following someone for another client." Sarah practically shoved him into her office and cleared a pile of manila folders off of the chair across from her desk.

"Where are the photos?" Jack asked, cutting to the chase as he settled into the chair. Sarah winked at him, tucking a dark curl behind one ear.

"Impatient as ever, I see," she declared, waggling a finger at him. Her heels clicked against the hard office flooring as she crossed the room and pulled a folder from the top of one of many teetering stacks. Returning, she dumped it onto his lap with a flourish.

"I think you'll agree, they're quite damning. Not that I'm surprised. Most of those Ministry types and politicians are all a bunch of deviants anyway."

Jack pulled open the envelope, then winced and shut it again just as quickly.

"Ugh!" he declared. "You couldn't have warned me?! I never wanted to see that much of Umbridge!"

"I don't blame you, darling," Sarah clucked sympathetically. "But you asked for the worst."

"To be honest I was expecting something more along the lines of accepting bribes…" Jack muttered, wincing and rubbing his eyes in an effort to free them from the image that was now burned into his corneas.

"Oh, we have that, too," Sarah consoled him. "It's at the back of the folder, though. Mr. Beacon insisted."

"Bastard."

"In his defense, darling, he was the one who had to _take_ the pictures."

"…Alright, fine, _pitiable_ bastard then," Jack conceded grudgingly. "So there's obvious blackmail potential in the photos, if the top one is any indication, and you've dug up something on bribes. Who from? You wouldn't have sounded so damn smug on the phone the other evening if it were anything small."

Sarah smiled at him. It was a predatory smile, rather vaguely reminiscent of Rita Skeeter's but with less plastic to it.

"It's a case of birds and stones, Jack," she supplied vaguely, rummaging on her desk for another file. Producing it with a triumphant gleam in her eye, she deposited this onto his lap as well. "The big bird's finally taken a hit."

A giddy feeling rose up in his stomach. "Malfoy?" Jack asked excitedly, opening the file with only a mild sense of foreboding left over from the last one. He needn't have feared – this time only text greeted his gaze. Sarah nodded.

"It gets better, Jack. Minister Fudge has been a very naughty boy."

"You have proof?"

"I wouldn't have called you if I didn't," She replied, looking slightly affronted. "Everyone and their owl knows that Fudge has been taking money from Malfoy. But he's been uncommonly clever about it. Mr. Beacon thought you were right about Umbridge being part of the whole web, though of course he'd never tell you that to your face, so he's been _leaning_ on certain connected parties for ages."

"And somebody finally broke?"

"Posthumously," she answered. At Jack's slightly horrified expression, she hastily clarified. "We didn't _kill_ the man, Jack. For Merlin's sake! What kind of establishment do you think I run here?"

Jack had the grace to look a little sheepish. "Sorry," he apologized. "It was just how you phrased it."

Sarah sniffed. "Quite. Anyway, what do you know about Belenus Mumford?"

The name sounded vaguely familiar. "…wait a minute… wasn't he one of Fudge's campaign sponsors?" he asked, recalling when the man had run for office after Bagnold's term was up. His efforts to see Fudge discredited before he became Minister had all run into some noteworthy stumbling blocks. The pureblood aristocracy had proven themselves to be a major pain in the arse, Mumford included.

"He was," Sarah said in a pleased tone of voice that implied Jack had just performed a rather clever trick. "He was also Fudge's uncle. Clean as whistle, too, as near as Mr. Beacon or I could find – his association with the Minister was based on familial loyalty."

"So what happened?" Jack asked, intrigued that he should be the nut to crack, and just how exactly he managed to do it from the grave.

"Old Belenus apparently had some suspicions about Fudge's _reciprocation _of familial loyalty, and so, whatever his reasons, he left quite a lot of incriminating evidence to his children when he passed on – of natural causes." The last bit was added with a pointed look in Jack's direction. He ignored it.

"And one of the younger generation spilled the beans?"

"The middle son proved to be much more agreeable to Mr. Beacon's line of thinking," Sarah offered in a pleasant tone of voice.

"In other words, Roy scared the pants off of him?"

"Essentially. The poor man just needed a polite shove in the right direction. I do believe some bitterness involving his cousin and a Christmas pudding from when they were children came into play as well," she explained thoughtfully. Jack shook his head.

"Wizards," he muttered, recognizing the hypocrisy of his judgment. Sarah merely smiled, and then began the engaging process of going through the contents of both folders as she explained what evil truths were contained therein.

Jack was regretfully forced to at least skim through the Umbridge photos – the fact that they moved didn't help in the slightest – and he wondered if it would be entirely unwise to risk self-obliviating his own mind afterward.

In the end he decided he'd let his nightmares sort it out.

Still, by the time he left the private investigator's offices, Jack was in a very pleasant mood. He had enough incriminating evidence to get Umbridge sacked, and to make both Lucius Malfoy and Cornelius Fudge extremely uncomfortable. Mr. Mumford, perhaps knowing his son's low tolerance for intimidation, had not entrusted him with enough information to get his nephew ousted from office – but it was a start, at least. A crack in the foundation of blackmail, bribes, and bigotry that had thusfar successfully protected the incompetent stooge.

Checking his watch, Jack noted that there was still some time before Douglas' party would finish. Not enough to get a head-start on his efforts with regards to the current administration, however. That would take some due consideration in order to be implemented properly.

Weighing his options, Jack decided he'd use the opportunity to go birthday shopping for Harry. With that in mind, he made his way down between two buildings and then, checking for observing muggles, apparated to Diagon Alley.

The alley was even more crowded than it had been the day before, with most of the older Hogwarts students meeting up with their friends to do school shopping and catch up on their summers. Jack felt a twinge of nostalgia, and then the surfacing of distant memories as he caught sight of Oliver Wood standing outside of Quality Quidditch Supplies with a wistful look on his face.

Should he get a broom for Harry? The boy would undoubtedly like it, but then again, he was going away for Hogwarts shortly and first years weren't permitted their own. Of course, the last time around there had been an exception made to that rule – but so much was different this time that Jack knew he couldn't rely on the same tenuous string of events pulling through once again. It would make a better gift for the boy's next birthday, he decided, in the long run of things.

There was always the possibility of joke items, of course, but Jack felt that as an authority figure he should try and avoid encouraging bad behavior, if only for the look of the thing. Besides which, while Harry liked to laugh, he wasn't much of a trickster.

Robes were too boring. Books he had plenty of to go through before school, and then the whole Hogwarts Library at his disposal afterwards. He already had his rat, and if Jack were being honest with himself, he'd admit to spoiling the boy a little bit the other day. But it was his first trip to the Alley, he reasoned – and it wasn't as though he bought him anything obscenely expensive or lavish.

"Do you think it's really real, Mum?"

"Of course he's _real_, Ginny, don't be ridiculous!"

"Ron, don't antagonize your sister. Ginny, dear, of course he's real."

"I didn't mean it like that. I mean, do you think he's going to be going to Hogwarts and everything? Like a regular boy?"

"Maybe he'll show up in a gilded carriage-"

"-drawn by phoenixes and griffins-"

"-with _Lord Harry Potter, future husband of ickle Gin-Gin-_"

"-engraved on the front!"

"_Boys!_"

"Sorry, Mum."

"I want to go to Hogwarts this year, Mum! Why can't I go with Ron?"

"Now, Ginny, it'll be your turn soon enough…"

Jack had stiffened at the familiar voices as they passed behind him, his gaze firmly fixed in the window of the nearest shop, although they saw nothing at all inside of it. Part of him wanted nothing more than to turn around, to see that distinctive cluster of red hair that marked the Weasley family… but something stopped him, halting his muscles and keeping him still. Only when the sounds of bickering and conversation had drifted out of earshot did he relax somewhat and remember to breathe.

_Dear Merlin,_ Jack thought, _and it's going to be like this from here on out, isn't it?_

The notion brought a peculiar mix of elation and foreboding with it.

Moving on, Jack eventually found two presents which he thought both appropriate for Harry, and easy on his own nerves. The first was a new pair of glasses. This was Harry's 'mature and practical' gift, although of course, Jack had several enchantments placed into the lenses. He intended to celebrate his charge's official entrance to the magical world by giving him gifts that reflected it. The glasses acted as a sort of foe-glass; when tapped with a wand and spoken to with a password, Harry would see anyone in the room who meant him harm as covered in a red glow. The more serious the harm (like a practical joke versus murderous intent) the brighter the glow.

As they were being custom made, Jack wouldn't be able to get them until the day before Harry's party. That left him free to find Harry's second, more frivolous gift after placing the order, and he discovered it in a miniature set of Quidditch figures, complete with two teams and a pitch. Rather like wizard's chess, the player could use the set to command the figures into a game of Quidditch – subsequently working out strategies while enjoying the tiny show. Both gifts were rare and expensive, and definitely counted as the most pricey ones he'd ever gotten for Harry.

He worried over that, a little. Jack was always trying to be careful to make sure that he maintained the proper balance between spoiling Harry and neglecting him. But Harry was a good boy, happy and energetic, and he figured that a _little_ spoiling wouldn't go amiss – especially now, when insecurities were running high and their whole world was about to tip over, moving from secrets and safety and into the broad, open light.

Returning home, Jack carefully wrapped and hid the Quidditch action-set, and then headed off for the Wilkens'. Harry greeted him cheerily and said enthusiastic farewells to Doug and the remaining guests, remembering to thank Mrs. Wilkens, but was afterward oddly quiet on the walk home.

"Did you have a nice time?" Jack asked lightly, wondering at the change in Harry's demeanor.

"Yeah," Harry replied. "It was fun. They had a magician and everything. Not a real one, of course, but he made good balloon animals." He lifted his yellow balloon-giraffe in testament. Jack nodded.

"And Doug liked his gift?"

"Mmhmm."

"…That's good."

"Yeah." Harry paused, clearly deep in his own thoughts. He might not have even realized that he'd stopped walking. Jack patiently waited for him to sort out whatever small internal storm was apparently happening.

"Doug's really not a wizard," Harry breathed at last, looking remarkably forlorn. He stared up at Jack. His eyes were a picture of frustration, sorrow, and turmoil. "He's my best friend, Uncle Jack! How come he's not a wizard? It isn't fair… I wish I could tell him! The whole party I wanted to tell him everything, about Diagon Alley and Junior and going to Hogwarts, but _I couldn't_. I hate it!"

Jack hesitated for a moment, watching as Harry kicked at a stray pebble on the walk and let out a gusty sight. He'd never had this particular problem himself. Jack had long grown used to keeping secrets, to the devilish necessity of it, before he had to deal with hiding his magical heritage from muggles. And, in truth, he was more acquainted with having secrets kept _from_ him when he was Harry's age, rather than vice versa.

"Harry," Jack said gently, laying a hand on his shoulder. He gathered his thoughts as identical green eyes stared up into his own. "I don't always agree with the Statute of Secrecy, but in a way, you're doing Doug a favor by not telling him."

Harry gave him a bewildered look. "What do you mean?" he asked. Glancing around, Jack carefully urged his charge back into a slow walk, keeping a hand on his shoulder, and tried to explain.

"Well, look at it this way… if you found out there was a world full of magical things, and people who could do magic, but that you _couldn't_… don't you think you'd feel bad?" he reasoned. Harry tilted his head contemplatively.

"You mean, like knowing Diagon Alley was there this whole time, but not being able to go?" he suggested. Jack latched onto the example, nodding.

"Pretty much. Only you knew there would be a time when you'd get to go – when you would learn magic and become a wizard. For Doug, if he knew about the magical world, he'd also have to live with knowing he'd never be part of it. Some people react badly to that sort of thing." Jack didn't think Doug was a likely candidate for becoming another Petunia Dursley, of course, the boy was very even-tempered… but then again, you could never be sure. Petunia's jealousy of her sister's magic had turned into hatred, and that hatred had allowed her to bitterly neglect and mistreat her sister's only child.

Harry pondered the conundrum of knowing about something remarkable, and knowing equally that you wouldn't be a part of it. He supposed his uncle made a good point, although something about it rang hollow inside of him.

"You think Doug would be jealous?" he clarified quietly. Jack shrugged.

"It's hard to say," he replied. "And sometimes it's better not to put a person in that position in the first place."

"But if it were me, I think I'd want to know," Harry argued. "Even if I couldn't actually _do_ magic, it would still be cool to see it and know people who could."

Jack considered this. "For a while, maybe," he agreed. "But you don't think you'd get frustrated with it eventually?"

Harry thought about what it would be like if Doug were magical and he wasn't. Would knowing about magic be worth it, even if he had to watch his friend do spells and become a wizard while Harry went on with his normal life? Would he start to dislike Doug for having something that he didn't?

A little, Harry decided, being honest with himself. But he'd still rather know, and in the end he would never blame Doug for something so completely beyond his control. He said as much to his uncle, who only shrugged by way of response.

"Well, maybe you're right," Jack said agreeably. He didn't really enjoy keeping the muggles in the dark himself – that was why he'd explained so much to the Grangers last night – but he accepted the logic behind secrecy from the general public. The Grangers _needed_ to know. The Wilkens didn't. It was a hard line to draw, but necessary nonetheless. "Either way you and I don't make the laws, so when it starts to bother you, just remember that it _is_ outside of your control. You aren't lying to Doug. The Ministry is."

Harry rolled his eyes. "That doesn't really help," he mumbled.

"Cheer up," Jack encouraged, nudging him a little and giving a small smile. "You'll see Doug during the holidays, I'm sure, and even if you can't talk about magical things you'll still find plenty to do."

Actually, Jack suspected that this wouldn't be the case – it could be difficult to carry on a conversation with someone when you couldn't tell them what you'd been doing the past few months – but Harry didn't need to hear that right now.

* * *

The next few days passed uneventfully for the most part. Dumbledore stopped by again for another round of interrogation/intimidation, which failed spectacularly, before Jack peppered him with questions regarding Quirrel's status and a replacement Defence professor. The headmaster was hesitant to part with information, and they exchanged some distinctly heated barbs, ending with Jack threatening to withdraw Harry from Hogwarts and Dumbledore threatening to bring him up before the Wizengamot on charges of identity fraud if he did.

At least he'd actually found a crime which Jack couldn't wriggle out of, given that regardless of the legitimacy of his blood connection to Harry, he still wasn't 'Jack Weatherby'.

Things had concluded rather explosively – well, in a simmering-below-the-surface kind of way – and Dumbledore had left after they stalemated. After the visit, Harry was sullen and on edge until the day before his birthday, when the excitement finally kicked in. Jack reluctantly sent his acceptance letter to the school for him. It was due before the thirty-first, and despite certain setbacks, he still wanted the boy to attend; he'd just have to deal with the Quirrell situation himself if it came to that.

Harry thoroughly enjoyed his birthday, despite having Hermione vomit on him partway through. It was his own fault, anyway, as Jack had thrown the party in a local park, and Harry had decided to see how fast he could spin his friend on one of the swings.

Afterwards, when they got home, Jack gave him his magical gifts. Harry politely accepted his new glasses, perking up a bit when his uncle explained the charm on them, but the miniature Quidditch set definitely stole the show. For most of the rest of the summer, when he wasn't running around with his friends, Harry could be found upstairs, directing the little figures into new maneuvers or sometimes just watching them fly wildly over their pitch.

But all too soon, it seemed, the summer came to an end.

Harry had no problem with crossing the barrier into Platform 9 ¾. In fact, he guessed what to do quite correctly himself, but double-checked his uncle before he went charging into the barrier. The pair were both a cacophony of nerves, excitement, and apprehensions – Harry because it would be his first day at a new school, and he already knew that he disliked his headmaster, and Jack for too many reasons to safely list.

As they stepped onto the platform, Jack quickly busied himself with double-checking Harry.

"Got your button?"

"Yes," Harry sighed, having gone through this before they left for the station already.

"Got the EPK?" The 'Emergency Portkey' was part of Jack's newest bought of what Harry considered paranoid security measures.

"Yes."

"And your wands?"

"Yes."

"All three?"

"All three. Uncle _Jack_, I'm fine!" Harry insisted, glancing around. "Do you see Hermione anywhere?"

Pausing in his inspection, Jack took in the station – and then almost immediately wished he hadn't. The feeling of nostalgia that overcame him was almost too much. Out of the corner of his eye he glimpsed Cedric and Amos Diggory, and off on the other side of the station he thought he saw Draco Malfoy's familiar, snotty expression.

And, not ten feet away, Molly Weasley was attempting to keep the twins from tormenting Percy while she held her daughter's hand. On her other side, her youngest son was looking around with a sort of nervous anticipation.

"Uncle Jack?" Harry asked in concern, after his uncle failed to answer him for several moments. Jack snapped out of it.

"What? Oh! Er, I don't see her, Harry. But knowing her, she's probably already onboard," Jack offered. "I'm sure you'll track her down."

There didn't seem to be any excuses to delay after that, and so Jack helped Harry with his luggage, and then, at last, knelt down in front of him to say his goodbye.

"Alright. Remember what I told you," he began, looking into Harry's eyes.

"Don't leave the grounds. Don't answer any unaddressed mail without a professor there. Don't go haring off on my own, even if it _is_ an emergency, and don't look Professor Snape in the eye if I can help it," Harry quoted diligently. Smiling, Jack ruffled his hair.

"Good. Now, have lots of fun, too, and remember you can still let me know if you need anything or have any troubles."

Harry nodded, with Junior peaking up from his pocket and twitching his whiskers at Jack, and then he was boarding the train and his uncle stepped back to let him go.

He waited on the platform until the train left, and was repaid for the sentiment when a small, red-haired girl crashed into him as she raced alongside it, crying and waving at one of the compartment windows.

"Ginny!" Molly Weasley scolded. "What were you thinking, running off like that? Are you alright? I'm terribly sorry, sir, I hope she didn't hurt you."

"It's fine," Jack insisted, waving off the concern as he moved to help Ginny back onto her feet. The little girl looked sufficiently embarrassed and still teary-eyed, but otherwise unhurt. Mrs. Weasley looked him up and down.

"First time, dear?" she asked, and Jack nearly jumped out of his skin.

"What?" he managed to blurt out. Mrs. Weasley clarified.

"It's your fist time sending one off, isn't it?" she said. Jack nodded, and she patted his shoulder sympathetically. "Believe me, it doesn't get any easier. Is it just the one, or do you have more?"

Jack forced himself to breathe.

"It's just him," he replied. Mrs. Weasley nodded.

"I have seven, if you can believe it. Ginny here's the last one, and she'll be leaving, too, next year. The house is going to feel rather quiet after that," she said wistfully. "Oh, but where are my manners? I'm Molly Weasley," she declared, extending a hand out to him.

"Jack Weatherby," he replied, gently shaking hands with her. "I came to see my nephew off."

"Wrangled another one, have you, Molly?" an unfamiliar voice asked, and Jack blinked as a woman came around him from behind. There was something about her face, though, that pulled at his memory. It was round and cheery, and very open.

In fact, he rather thought that she might have been related to Mrs. Weasley, as she moved to stand beside her. They looked like they could be, in a distant sort of way. Cousins, perhaps?

"Hello," the woman greeted, and the way she smiled at him pulled at Jack's mind in a very nagging sort of fashion. "I'm Alice Longbottom. I don't believe we've met."

Well, that explained that. Now he knew what to look for, Jack spotted the resemblance immediately.

"Jack here was seeing his nephew off. Couldn't his parents make it?" Mrs. Weasley asked, and Jack winced.

"They passed away a long time ago," he explained. This response was met with the proper sympathies and condolences, and Jack assured them that it was quite alright, there'd been many years to mend those wounds. _Not_, he thought, _that you ever truly can._

Molly and Alice, as he had to remember to call them, were apparently cousins as well, although only in that distant pureblood sort of fashion. Somehow Alice managed to produce her husband Frank from the woodwork (they both seemed to have an uncanny knack for popping up out of nowhere) and the three of them wrangled him into joining them for an early lunch.

"Nev'll be a Gryffindor, I guarantee it," Frank declared as they settled into a restaurant which was, by the looks of it, a common haunt for parents who had just seen their children off onto the Express.

"Oh, for the love of… you know, Frank, Ravenclaw is a perfectly _fine_ house, you don't have to keep spouting the virtues of Gryffindor just because of what your uncle said."

"It's got nothing to do with Uncle Algie! I just think that Nev's got the stuff to be a lion. Up Gryffindor!"

"Well, he'll probably be in the same house as my Ron, then," Molly mused. "Not that he _has_ to be in Gryffindor, of course, we'll love him no matter what, but… well…"

"Weasleys always end up in Gryffindor," Alice finished for her. "We know, Molly, and goodness knows you've already had five rounds to prove it." She turned to Jack. "What about your boy? Where do you think he'll go?"

"I think Harry Potter's going to be in Gryffindor," Ginny piped up. Up until then she'd merely been sniffling rather disappointedly into her sleeve.

"Ginny, hush, dear, we aren't talking about Harry Potter for goodness' sake," Molly chided her lightly.

Jack almost laughed at the irony. As it was, he couldn't keep in a smile. "I'm not sure," he managed after a moment. "I suppose anything's possible…" And that was true, he realized. His Harry had a lot of good qualities (and not-so-great qualities) that could land him almost anywhere. He wondered if the hat wouldn't even take longer with him than it had when Jack was Sorted.

"Well, what about his parents?" Frank pried.

"Gryffindor," Jack answered noncommittally, feeling a bit like a broken record after how many times the name had been said at the table. Alice heaved a long sigh.

"How on _earth_ do I always end up surrounded by Gryffindors?" she inquired of the ceiling. "Please tell me you weren't one as well…?"

Jack's apologetic look was the only reply she needed. Alice tossed her hands up into the air.

"I don't know how you lot do it! It's like you have some sort of permanent enchantment that literally _pulls_ you towards other Gryffindors. Do you know, I think it's actually been an entire year since I've spoken to another Ravenclaw?"

"No offence, love," Frank said, patting her shoulder. "But not a lot of your housemates went into law enforcement."

Alice shrugged. "I suppose I can only blame myself," she lamented. Jack found that he quite liked the Longbottoms. Though he had been the one to leave the anonymous tip that saved them from being attacked by the Lestranges, he hadn't had anything to do with them after the fact. Alice had a good sense of humour, and was easily led into going off onto fond tangents about her children. Apparently, Neville also had two younger brothers, both of whom were currently grounded at home with their grandmother.

"The devils snuck off when we were getting Nev's school things," Frank explained, looking quite amused. Then he caught sight of Alice's expression and quickly sobered. "Which, of course, was a very dangerous thing to do. Merlin only knows what could have happened to them."

"At least they didn't blow anything up," Molly said with a rather distant, dark look in her eye. "You would not _believe_ the trouble Fred and George got themselves into last week…"

Molly Weasley was exactly as Jack remembered her; friendly, stern, loving, and mildly terrifying when she was in the right mood. Ginny, he could tell, did not think very much of having lunch with a small gathering of adults, and picked at her food moodily. It was a little difficult to connect this tiny, freckle-faced girl (who occasionally glowered at him) with his own Ginny of memory, who had blossomed into popularity and confidence by the time he'd started to notice her.

Not that he'd noticed her for very long, either, before she had died. So many dead faces… Jack snapped himself out of his thoughts. "Er, yes Molly?" he said, realizing that she'd been addressing him.

"I said, what's your nephew's name? You never did mention it," she repeated.

"Harry," he answered. And then, because everyone would know as soon as the children started sending letters home anyway, "Harry Potter, to be precise."

Frank choked on his water.

* * *

Harry looked at the students bustling around the train, moving between compartments as they searched for friends or empty seats. Passing one open compartment door, Harry spied a boy with dreadlocks showing the contents of a box to some other students, one of whom gave a sudden shriek of fright. A blonde girl – another first year, by her robes – all but shoved him out of the way as she hurried past him, back towards the front of the train. She looked upset.

Peering around, Harry attempted to locate Hermione, wondering if his uncle had been wrong about her probably already being on the train.

After searching fruitfully for another few minutes, Harry gave up and just decided to try and find an empty – or reasonably empty – compartment. He slid open the door to a few, disturbing one group of older students with green and silver ties who looked a bit huffy, before he came to a mostly-empty one. Only another first year boy, a gangly redhead, sat in it. He was looking out the window.

"Excuse me," Harry began cheerfully, drawing his attention. "Do you mind if I sit here? I was looking for my friend, but I don't know if she's on the train yet, and everywhere else is full."

The other boy shrugged, and Harry took that for assent and secured a seat for himself.

An awkward silence settled in.

It didn't really break until the train began to move, and the other boy looked back out of the window again, and began waving. Presumably to his family. Harry decided to join him, and could only just pick out his Uncle Jack amidst the steam and crowd. He did manage to catch it, however, as a little girl running alongside the train barreled into him. The boy at his side winced.

"Ouch, poor Ginny…" he said.

"I think she just crashed into my uncle," Harry offered. The redhead whistled.

"It's a small world." He smiled. "I'm Ron Weasley, by the way."

Harry took his hand as he extended it. "Harry Weatherrrr… well, _actually_, I guess it's Harry Potter now," he corrected sheepishly. "It's my real name, but I haven't gone by it since I was a baby."

Ron Weasley's jaw dropped, and his hand abruptly froze mid-motion. His eyes drifted to Harry's forehead and, after a moment, Harry obligingly lifted his fringe. If it was at all possibly, Ron's jaw would have dropped even further.

"Blimey," he breathed. "Are you sure?"

Harry laughed out loud. He felt a little bad about it afterwards, though, as the other boy immediately turned bright red. But before he could reply or apologize, the compartment door slid open, and a familiar bushy-haired girl gave a sudden exhalation of relied.

"_There_ you are, Harry, I've been looking everywhere for you!" she exclaimed. He rolled his eyes.

"Well I was looking for you, too, you know. I just sensibly gave up after a while," he retorted, settling back into his seat as she practically flopped down beside him. Harry blinked when one of the two books in her arms was dumped into his lap and looked at her inquiringly.

"I finished it," she explained. "Remember? You loaned it to me last week. I was going to give it to your uncle at the station, but we couldn't find you and I didn't want to miss the train."

"Oh," Harry replied. Ron was looking between the two of them in confusion.

"Who are you?" he blurted at Hermione, who seemed not to have noticed he was even there. She started, and then introduced herself.

"I'm Hermione Granger," she offered, extending a hand. Ron took it, but still looked a little bewildered.

"I've never heard of you," he responded, and Harry had to suppress a surprised laugh. Hermione bristled.

"Well," she said. "That's an unusual name."

"What?" Ron asked, now totally lost.

"'Ive Never Heardofyou'. It's a really peculiar name – is there a hyphen or two in it?" Hermione clarified, and Ron glared at her.

"My name's Ron Weasley," he snapped, pulling his hand back. "And how come you know Harry Potter?"

Hermione blinked.

"He lives around the corner from me," she explained reasonably. "We went to school together."

Harry nodded in agreement. "I was trying to find Hermione when I came in. Remember? I said I was looking for someone?"

Ron seemed to have trouble with the concept that Harry Potter did anything as normal as live in a neighborhood, or go to school. He kept opening his mouth, as if he wanted to ask something, but then closing it as some internal force seemed to override him. They were finally interrupted when the trolly came by, and a pleasant-faced witch asked if they wanted anything to eat or drink.

Ron mumbled something about sandwiches, and Hermione produced a packet of sugar-free sweets from her _barking mad_ parents, but Harry got up and used some of his allowance to buy a few treats.

"Want some?" Harry asked Ron, holding out a Cauldron Cake. Hermione was examining his purchases with a cultural interest.

"Nah," Ron replied, his face rather pink. "My Mum made sandwiches." He held up a triangle of bread and meat in example. Harry shrugged.

"I'll trade you," he offered, and reluctantly, Ron agreed. He didn't show any reluctance about eating some sweets once he had them, however, Harry noticed, although the redhead's eyes watched Hermione curiously.

"What's she doing?" he asked. Hermione glared at him.

"_She_ is trying to figure out what everything is," she replied, holding up a chocolate frog. Ron blinked, and Harry sighed.

"Her parents are dentists. They're nuts. They make her eat sugar-free sweets, and plain cereal, and everything," he explained in a long-suffering manner. "And they keep passing bad habits on to my uncle."

"They're good habits, Harry, really, and you eat too much sugar anyway," Hermione scolded. Ron looked between the two of them.

"Dentists?" he asked, brow furrowing. Then it cleared in understanding. "Oh! So you're a muggle-born, then?"

She frowned at him. "Yes." Her voice was a trifle defiant when she replied, and Ron raised his hands.

"Hey, no objections here! My dad's mad for muggle stuff. Completely bonkers. He collects plugs," Ron insisted. Hermione held her glare for a moment longer, but then let it slide, seeming to decide that Ron was harmless, and shrugged.

"I wish Doug could've come," Harry said aloud after a moment, opening the chocolate frog which Hermione had been examining shortly before. "He'd have loved it."

"Who's Doug?" Ron asked.

"A friend of ours from home," Harry replied. "He's a muggle, though, so he had to go to a different school."

"Oh." Ron fidgeted. "You grew up around muggles, then?" At Hermione's look, he hastened to clarify. "Only my family's all wizarding, you see, so I don't know much about it."

Harry shrugged and nodded. "My Uncle Jack sort of took me into hiding after my parents died. Since I'm famous I couldn't really be around magical folk, so we live in a muggle neighborhood – well, _mostly_ muggle, since Hermione's a witch, I guess."

Ron looked confused again. Harry felt a bit bad for him; he seemed to be getting lost an awful lot. "Why couldn't you be around magical folk? Everybody loves you! You defeated You-Know-Who!"

Once again, before Harry could reply, the door to the compartment slid open. A pair of identical mops of red hair, with matching identical faces, popped in.

"Ronniekins!" both boys declared in unison, smiling broadly at the sight of the boy who Harry guessed was their brother. Ron turned the colour of a tomato and looked at them in horror as they stepped into the compartment.

"Mum told us we ought to check up on you!"

"Are you warm enough?"

"Have you been polite to the other children?"

"Do you need to use the washroom?"

"Are you homesick already, because-"

"-we could get you an owl-"

"-and let you write to Mummy and Daddy,-"

"-so they can take ickle won-won-"

"-home for another year!"

The last part was said in unison.

"Wow," Harry said afterwards, noticing that his new friend was about to blow his top. "First snacks, now this. I didn't think the train ride would be so entertaining!" He nudged Hermione with his shoulder, and she grinned a little.

Focusing on him for the first time, both boys turned around, and then gave a synchronized bow.

"We live-"

"-to amuse!"

As they came back up, their gazes fixed on his face. As two sets of identical brown eyes suddenly fixed on a certain point on his forehead, Harry realized he'd forgotten to pat his fringe back down over his scar. For a moment, he was irrationally worried. Then he realized that soon enough the whole school would know who he was (at the very least when the teachers started taking role call) and pushed the worry aside.

"He's not…"

"He _is_…"

"It's Harry Potter!"

"It is?!" a new voice suddenly declared, and Harry realized with a start that the twins had left the compartment door open. His nerves began to jangle as he heard a murmur of voices carry down the train, and faces popping into the open doorway, gaping at him like he was some sort of spectacle. There was a sudden commotion in the corridor as several students tried to push past each other at once. Harry stared at their reactions in shock, wondering if they were about to be stampeded.

"How rude!" Hermione snapped, getting to her feet with all the imperious rage an eleven-year-old could muster, and slamming the compartment door shut with a bang. Ron and the twins jumped.

"Bloody hell…" one of the twins breathed.

"Are you his bodyguard?" another asked, and she rolled her eyes.

Harry turned to Ron.

"_That_," he said. "Is one of the answers to your question." Although, even Harry had not expected to get such a startling reaction from the rest of the train. He wondered if his uncle wasn't less paranoid than he thought. Ron shrugged.

"They just want to get a look at you," he insisted. "After all, you're famous. And everybody thought you were dead for a really long time."

"Or worse," one of the twins agreed. Then both of them shared a look with each other, and grinned.

"But allow us to extend you our services-"

"-in the form of a much-needed distraction," they offered, with another bow, and then before Harry could answer the pair swept out of the compartment. The door slid shut behind them. Through it, the trio could hear the muffled sound of voices, followed by a loud 'bang' and then a lot of running footsteps.

Silence reigned.

"Well," Hermione said after a long moment. "That was… interesting. What do you suppose they did?" she asked.

"Something against the rules," Ron replied, looking as though his brain had decided to run off and leave the rest of him on auto-pilot for the day. "They're always breaking rules, Fred and George. Mum keeps hoping they'll grow out of it."

Hermione looked only mildly disapproving before she shrugged. "Oh, well. I suppose it worked anyway. Are you alright, Harry?" she asked, noticing that the other boy had gone very quiet.

Harry waved her off. "It's just weird, that's all," he explained. Then he glanced out of the compartment's window. "I guess we should probably put our school robes on…" he mused, wondering exactly how much time had passed.

"Good idea," Hermione agreed, and the three busied themselves sorting out their uniforms. Junior scrambled out of Harry's pocket as he changed, and Ron caught sight of him, blinking as the little white rat gave him a curious examination.

"Is that yours?" he asked.

"He is," Harry agreed with a grin, trying unsuccessfully to sort out his tie. "His name's Harry Jr., but I just call him Junior."

Ron looked confused again. "But you're _Harry Potter_. Why did you bring a rat to school? They aren't very popular." By Ron's way of thinking, a famous celebrity ought to have a really distinguished-looking owl, or some kind of magical familiar, or something. Right?

Harry shrugged. "So what?" he asked, feeling defensive. "I like him. He's really clever, and he never gets lost or bites or anything."

Ron raised his hands in defense, feeling like he kept stepping on toes that he didn't even realize were there. "No, er, I don't have anything against rats! I have one, see?" he offered, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a very scruffy, elderly-looking grey rat, who appeared to be asleep.

Junior's whiskers twitched.

"His name's Scruffle. He used to belong to my brother, Percy, but he gave him to me this summer," Ron explained. Scruffle raised his head upon hearing his name, cracking open one eye to gaze at the new, young rat across from him, and then went back to sleep.

"Huh," Harry said after a minute.

Ron turned red again. "I know, he's a bit rubbishy. Everything I get is hand-me-downs," he explained, with a rather bitter tone of voice. Harry and Hermione, who had both grown up as only children, couldn't do much but shrug rather apologetically.

"Well, you can play with Junior anytime," Harry offered. "Although he likes to climb onto people's heads for some reason. I think it's the view."

Junior twitched, and then Harry scooped him up and extended him invitingly to Ron, who hesitantly reached out a hand and accepted the small animal. Leaning over the redhead's fingers, the little rat examined Scruffle more closely, who ignored him in favor of wheezing drowsily.

"He is sort of cute," Ron conceded, and Harry grinned. Hermione just shook her head and cracked open her book, managing to get in a little light reading before the Express pulled into Hogsmeade station.

When they arrived, Ron quickly returned Junior to Harry, and it was with a great deal of trepidation that the other boy patted his hair down and exited the compartment. Fortunately, their arrival and the ensuing bustle seemed to keep most of the other students occupied, and nobody shouted his name or tried to rush over to him.

Once they had gotten clear of the train, Harry wondered where they were meant to go. Then he heard a loud voice calling for the first year students, and followed it to a veritable giant of a man, dressed in a moleskin coat and with a big bushy beard. Despite his intimidating appearance, the man had a jovial voice, and didn't seem at all dangerous.

"Firs' years!" he bellowed, and Harry felt a jab in his side as a sharp-faced blonde boy elbowed past him.

"Oi, watch it, Malfoy!" someone else growled from behind them.

"Sod off, Longbottom!" Malfoy snarled back, paying Harry no notice as the boy behind him – Longbottom, presumably – darted forward. He was round-faced and rather stocky, and a good deal bigger than his opponent, Harry noticed. Reaching out, Longbottom shoved Malfoy, successfully sending him to the ground. As Harry was wondering if he should step in or not, two other boys (and he had never known that human children could resemble baby gorillas so closely) rushed in, one grabbing Longbottom's arm and the other giving him a punch to the side.

"Two against one! That's dirty fighting!" Harry snapped at them, moving to push the baby-gorilla closest to him off of their target, but just then the enormous guide stepped in and literally pulled everyone away from each other.

"No fightin'! None o' tha, now, none o' that!" he said loudly, lifting the blonde boy off of the ground and planting him back on his feet. He was rewarded for his efforts with a sharp, steely-grey glare.

"He started it!" Malfoy whined, pointing at Longbottom.

"Call off your goons and I'll finish it, too!" Longbottom declared hotly. He curled one hand into a fist and brandished it in a threatening manner.

"Too right, Nev! You tell him!" Ron goaded, moving past Harry to the other boy's side and glowering at Malfoy and his friends. But just when it seemed that another fight might break out, the big man moved between the two groups, and successfully cut them off from one another.

"None o' that, I said!" he bellowed, and the sound was sufficiently intimidating that the fight was ended. Satisfied, the man – who introduced himself as the groundskeeper, Hagrid – began leading the students down towards a rather sizeable body of water.

"I'd like to black that pompous snot's eye," Longbottom growled under his breath as they started walking. Ron nodded in fervent agreement.

"Can you believe his nerve, shoving people around like that? Like he's king or something. Someone ought to take him down a peg," the redhead grumbled. "I mean, he jabbed Harry with his elbow! _Harry Potter!_"

Harry dropped his face into his hands as everyone in earshot whipped around to look at him. There was a pause.

"Please don't stampede me," he mumbled imploringly.

"_Ron!"_ Hermione snapped.

"What?" Ron demanded defensively.

"You're _Harry Potter_?" Longbottom asked, doing a double-take and trying to see his forehead. It wasn't easy, as Harry still had his hands on his face.

He nodded.

"Wicked!" the other boy breathed. Then he extended a hand. "I'm Neville Longbottom, but everyone calls me Nev. Well, except my mum. And my Gran."

Harry shook it, wondering how many more formal introductions he was going to make before the day was out. When Hagrid led them down to the boats, he quickly found himself pulled into the same one as Neville and Ron. He grabbed hold of Hermione to make sure that she came, too, but the move was largely unnecessary; she was following them anyway, and glaring at the boys. Neville in particular seemed to like asking probing and personal questions in his rather boisterous tone of voice.

"So where do you live? Is it true that you've had Unspeakables training you in special skills since you were one? I bet you already know loads of spells. Do you think you'll be in Gryffindor? My dad was in Gryffindor, but my mum was in Ravenclaw. I hope _I _get into Gryffindor. Do you remember the night you defeated You-Know-Who? Only I know you were just a baby, and everything, but nobody really knows what happened… unless it's all hush-hush and Ministry secrets, of course. Is it true that you were so powerful they had to put you behind a special containment shield until you were nine?"

Hermione smacked him on the shoulder with her book, and the boat rocked as Harry just tried to sort his thoughts out around the dizzying barrage of questions.

"Are you _mad?_" Neville demanded, wincing and rubbing his arm. "What was that for?"

"How would you like it if someone started asking you all sorts of rude questions like that?" Hermione fumed, brandishing the book again. Ron looked like he didn't know whether to be offended on Neville's behalf or deeply amused, even as the other boy cringed and moved back a little.

"… Er…" Harry began tentatively. "I've been living with my uncle…"

He trailed off as the castle came into sight. Everyone's focus suddenly shifted to the building, and their jaws went slack.

Hogwarts was a striking sight. Many towers and turrets jutted up into the darkening sky, and the castle was, undeniably, _huge_. Under ordinary circumstances it would have seemed ominous and bleak, but the light streaming out from the many windows gave off an oddly cheerful, inviting glow. Harry couldn't imagine how he would navigate a building so large without getting lost. Somehow, the way his uncle had described the school, he'd always imagined something more along the lines of a cozy manor house. With a dungeon.

The boats pulled past some hanging vines, which obligingly moved themselves, and up to a platform. The children remained silent, excited and nervous as they clambered out and followed Hagrid up to a pair of large double doors. Pushing them open, he guided the children inside what looked to be a kind of waiting room, and then knocked on a set of interior doors. They opened to reveal a very stern-looking witch whom Harry immediately recognized from Diagon Alley.

Hagrid addressed her briefly, and then left, and Professor McGonagall gave a speech about the school and the upcoming Sorting. Then she led them all into the Great Hall.

Harry gaped at the ceiling, which reflected the exterior sky back at him. He'd heard about this, and read about it a little, but it was one thing to know of something and another entirely to see it yourself. The four student tables stretched out along the sides of the room, beneath their multi-coloured banners. A snake, a lion, an eagle, and a badger all rippled in some vague breeze, and Harry huddled rather closer to his peers as numerous sets of eyes turned to their group. Students and staff alike gazed at them, and many seemed to be searching for something.

_Me?_ Harry wondered, trying to shift himself so he was behind Neville. He was so focused on making himself unnoticeable that he almost missed it when Professor McGonagall deposited a very worn, manky old hat onto a stool in the centre of the room.

He probably wouldn't have missed the singing, though, as a rip near the brim opened up and belted out a song.

When it was through, the deputy headmistress cleared her throat, and unfurled a sheet of parchment in front of herself. "When I call your name," she began. "Step forward to be Sorted. After the name of your house is declared, please join the rest of your housemates at the appropriate table. Abbott, Hannah."

The blonde girl whom Harry had bumped into when he first got onto the train stepped forward. Professor McGonagall directed her to the stool, and once she sat, deposited the hat onto her head. After a moment, the brim opened, and the hat called out:

"Hufflepuff!"

Hannah took it off and passed it back to the professor, before hurrying off to the Hufflepuff table as the house applauded their new member.

And so it went, with McGonagall moving down her list alphabetically, and the first-year students moving to the stool and being sent off to one table or another. The houses all clapped politely for their new members (Gryffindor being the most boisterous about this) and soon enough the list moved down to…

"Granger, Hermione."

Looking distinctly nervous, Hermione hurried forward to the stool. The hat looked absolutely ridiculous with her bushy hair sticking out around the rim. There was a bit of a pause and then: "Ravenclaw!" it bellowed. Harry watched as his friend darted over to the applauding table beneath the blue and bronze banner. She gave him a smile and a little shrug.

The Sorting continued on with children whom Harry didn't know until Longbottom, Neville was welcomed into the ranks of Gryffindor, and then Malfoy, Draco was sent, almost before the hat even touched his head, to the Slytherins. More names were called, and finally after Patil, Padma joined Hermione in Ravenclaw and Patil, Parvati went off towards Gryffindor, McGonagall called out:

"Potter, Harry."

A sense of anticipation settled down over the school. Taking a deep breath, Harry forced his legs to work, and walked forward. Murmurs broke out amongst the students as he did so. He forced himself not to look around at them, but instead focused on the hat and stool in his immediate line of vision.

Taking a seat, he found he was now facing his fellow first-years, who were looking at him wide-eyed. Well, except Ron. The red-haired boy flashed him the thumbs up briefly before his vision was partly blocked as the big, floppy hat came down over his ears.

"Well, well, well, what do we have here… now this is interesting…" a voice between his ears began, and Harry almost jumped in surprise at hearing it. "You've got a good mind, I can see that. And a healthy dose of courage, too. Hmm. Lots of loyalty and a strong work-ethic… not to mention some cunning underneath it all. Any preferences?"

Harry drew a blank.

"No? Well, that's fine by me. After all, it's my job."

The brim opened, and the hat bellowed out the name of his house.

It was only after Harry had swept it off of his head and darted over to his table that he noticed the hall was dead silent. An entire room full of shocked faces had turned his way. Up amongst the staff, a diminutive professor had fallen off of his seat with a startled 'oomph'.

Then the Hufflepuff table burst into cheers.

* * *

After the rather electrifying conclusion to his lunch with Molly Weasley and the Longbottoms (Frank seemed to think he was pulling their legs, while Molly and Alice had alternated between concern and fascination) Jack had returned home, only to find that the house seemed inexplicably _empty_.

Harry had only been gone for several hours, but somehow the knowledge that he would continue to be gone for longer than he ever had before magnified the quiet, making it stretch out ominously around him.

Somehow, Jack had a feeling that he wouldn't be spending a lot of time at home from now on.

Which was fine by him. Coming through the door, he tossed off his jacket and headed upstairs and into his bedroom. Pulling out his trunk, he retrieved the Marauder's Map, and a familiar, silvery cloak.

The article which had once been able to hide himself and a maximum of three other children underneath it could now only just conceal himself, provided he wore it properly. Jack did so, pulling the hood up over his head and checking the mirror to make certain he hadn't missed anywhere.

Exiting his bedroom, he fished his wand out of his pocket and closed the door. Then he murmured a password, tapped the doorknob, and opened it again.

A narrow storage room greeted him. Harry didn't even know about this one, and Jack preferred it that way, for the sake of the boy's own security. It was among the more heavily warded locations of the house, with spells designed to keep people out, and, if necessary, trap them inside it as well. But there was only one item in the room. A tall black cabinet with gold trim, purchased years ago from Borgin & Burkes.

Opening the cabinet doors, Jack stepped past them and into the blackness within.

He re-emerged a moment later from an identical cabinet on the first floor of Hogwarts. Though he had purchased the unique piece of furniture quite some time ago, he had only ever had occasion to use it once before. He didn't like to make a habit of coming to the school. For one thing, he never really had been able to figure out how Dumbledore saw through invisibility cloaks. For another, there weren't many practical reasons to do so, and Jack tried to distance himself from falling into the deep nostalgia and longing for his first home.

It would be some time before the train and, therefore, students arrived yet, but as much as he wanted to see Harry's Sorting that wasn't why he was here.

Dumbledore wasn't being open-handed with his information. To be sure, neither was Jack, not by a long shot, but he was willing to live with the double-standard in this case. From a strictly parent-teacher perspective, it wasn't unreasonable to request that homicidal madmen not be kept on staff. And Jack had made the first move of peace, offering Dumbledore confirmation where before he'd only had speculation. But the man's evasiveness and stubborn attitude since then were slowly snapping that particular olive branch.

He realized his mistake, of course. When he'd given Dumbledore the solution to one particular mystery, he'd provided him with a dozen more. Now the man was undoubtedly expending his efforts on trying to figure _Jack_ out, distracting him from the main focus, which was (as it usually was) Voldemort. He'd been assuming that Dumbledore would weigh the scales of the mysterious-but-ultimately-helpful Jack Weatherby against the less-mysterious-but-incredibly-dangerous Lord Voldemort and choose to leave the former alone.

That had been naïve of him. Dumbledore, he knew, would always take the enemy he was familiar with over the potential-threat that he wasn't. As long as Jack remained an unknown quantity, Dumbledore would hoard any advantage he could hold against him.

Muffling the sounds of his footsteps, Jack decided his first stop would be to the staff room, and if that didn't hold any answers, then the Defence Against the Dark Arts classroom and office. His primary concern was ascertaining whether or not Quirrell was gone.

The fact that there was nary a whisper of a break-in at Gringotts was a promising sign, but still. It wasn't safe to assume that changing one aspect of an event changed all of it, and Jack was nothing if not _thorough_ in his decimation of his own history.

The map didn't show him as being present in the school, but then again, he could have simply left on an errand. Jack had to be sure, had to be _certain_ that Harry was as safe as he could make him.

As it was difficult to look at the map and stay completely under the cloak, Jack soon folded the sheet of parchment into one of his pockets, and proceeded down the halls. It was eerie to walk the castle in broad daylight and find it so empty. Most of the portraits seemed a bit lethargic and drowsy, despite the time of day – he wondered if they slept more when there were no students to distract them.

The staff room was empty. Jack searched it for any sign of Quirrell – even going so far as to sniff the air for a faint trace of the man's distinctive odor – but found nothing. It was another good sign, but still nothing conclusive. Moving on, he made for the Defence classroom, wondering who Dumbledore had replaced the man with if he'd truly done as Jack requested.

He took a moment to hope, for Harry's sake, that he wasn't getting Lockheart a year early.

_Surely we would have been sent an 'updated' booklist in that case_… Jack thought to himself. Lockheart was an incompetent fraud, and a bungler, whom he would have liked to be rid of; but for the past few years Jack had had bigger fish to fry (including the current Minister) and since he was more of a B-level threat, the imposter had been reluctantly left alone.

Academically, his teaching would be a complete disaster, but at least he wouldn't be _actively_ trying to kill any students.

_If it's Lockheart, I'll just have to owl Harry some very top-notch Defense texts_, he reasoned.

The Defence classroom itself was rather sparsely laid-out. Gone were the wreaths of garlic and the other bizarre little personal touches which had been present during his first year. In fact, the room looked as though it had been recently cleared out, and was still waiting for a professor to come and make a mark on it. Jack frowned. Had Dumbledore not been able to fill the position?

Well, the office would be the surest way to check that. It was possible that the new professor simply hadn't had time to embellish anything, between setting up last-minute lesson plans and settling into the school. He proceeded to the office, and was relieved to find that it was not, in fact, a totally barren room.

It came rather close, though. A few books lined the shelves here and there. Most were on basic defense and auror training, and Harry suspected that anything more advanced was probably kept in one of the locked trunks near the desk. There were some sheets of parchment on top it – mostly schedules, he noted as he glanced at them, and lesson plans. He frowned as he noticed something on one of them, and lifted it up. The name 'Harry Potter' had been circled. Glancing through the rest, he realized that every instance of the name had received similar highlighting. And, he noticed, something about the handwriting was ringing familiar in the back of his mind.

Well. That could mean a lot of things. Not many of them were good. Carefully, Jack put the parchment back, and decided to snoop around some more. Most of the drawers on the desk were locked tight, and those that weren't simply held more paperwork or spare writing implements. He could probably open most of them, but re-locking them afterwards would be tricky, and he didn't want anyone to know he'd been here. Moving on, he gave the trunks a once over. They looked like they had been expensive when they were first purchased, but had worn down over the years. Engraved on the nearest one, in clear, bold print, were three initials.

S.O.B.

Jack looked at them for a moment. Then an internal light went on in his mind, and he swore.

"Son of a -"

"If I could have all of your attention, please!" Dumbledore asked, standing up as the feast finished and dishes and plates cleared. He didn't shout, but his voice carried well, and quickly drew most eyes towards him. Harry looked up from the conversation he'd been having with another first year boy.

"A few announcements before we begin our new school year," the headmaster began once everyone had settled in to listen. "First, I would remind all students that the Forbidden Forest is aptly named, and completely out-of-bounds. Our caretaker, Argus Filch, has asked that I inform you of the updated Banned Items list which can currently be viewed in his office. In addition, the second East Tower is completely off limits to all who do not wish to die a very painful death."

Harry blinked. "Did he mean that?" he asked in a low whisper. The boy he had been talking to, Ernie, shrugged.

"He's probably exaggerating. I hope."

"And lastly," Dumbledore continued. "It is my great pleasure to introduce our new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, Professor Sirius Black!"

* * *

**Author's Note:** Dun dun dun! . Hmm, Dumbledore sure managed to 'find' Sirius awful quick... it makes one wonder... Oh! And fifty points to anyone who correctly guessed Harry's house before he was Sorted!


End file.
